


See Under: Clue, Getting A.

by abundantlyqueer



Series: Clueverse [2]
Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2003-09-01
Updated: 2004-10-18
Packaged: 2017-10-13 01:17:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 30,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/131189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abundantlyqueer/pseuds/abundantlyqueer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Wh -- you're tellin' me *you've* never been with a guy either?" Elijah demands in disbelief. <br/>"<i>Why</i> do people find that so hard to believe?" Orli protests.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

  
There's another pause while they stare at each other some more, but eventually Orli snaps back into focus.  
"We need to get outta here man," he murmurs gravely.  
Elijah nods emphatic agreement, though he has no idea if Orli's referring to the phone kiosk or the hotel nightclub or the entire southern hemisphere. He pushes the kiosk door open again and they both unfold out of the cramped space into the noise and strobes and heat of the club. Orli threads a path through the crush of people, weaving and pushing and apologizing, prying apart the crowd with his leading shoulder. Elijah tucks in close behind him, at one point taking hold of the back of Orli's tee shirt to avoid their getting separated; the thin cotton between Elijah's fingers is warmly damp.  
They emerge out of the club into the spacious calm of the main lobby, and Elijah follows Orli to the elevator. On the way up, no one says anything. Elijah's utterly absorbed by a spot of something dark on the hem of his own tee shirt, except for the instants when he flicks a razor-sharp glance at Orli. Orli's leaning idly against one wall of the elevator, his thumbs hanging from his front hip pockets, long fingers curving down towards --  
Elijah takes up two pinchfuls of his shirt hem and scrubs them together, but it doesn't take the spot out. The elevator settles and the doors whisper open and Orli leads the way down the maze-like hallway.  
"This is me," he announces, swiping his keycard, pushing the door open onto darkness, and palming lights on as he enters. Elijah follows, closes the door softly behind them, but then hesitates where he is. He doesn't even know if he's up here to - what? Discuss his feelings? Get his ass fucked? Jesus, he really hopes it's not that second thing, since the very thought makes his guts curl up and try to scuttle out of the way.  
Since Elijah makes no move to Orli, Orli walks back to Elijah.  
"So, em, the thing is, and it's really kinda funny when you consider I was the one that started this," Elijah says, rapidly backing up a step, "I'm don't actually - at least, I've never – shit. Orli, I wasn't kidding - I don't know what I want to happen … what I'm gonna be okay with."  
"In great company man," Orli grins, his hands lifted palm-out as if to present himself.  
"Wh -- you're tellin' me *you've* never been with a guy either?" Elijah demands in disbelief.  
"*Why* do people find that so hard to believe?" Orli protests.  
Elijah exhales an almost laugh, but mostly he's trying to work out if this is better or worse than Orli being a gay-sex-god and really working Elijah over. Orli steps in nearer and does a "come'ere" tilt of the head; his expression is so completely conspiratorial instead of seductive that Elijah does move closer without hesitation.  
"How complicated does it have to be?" Orli asks in an undertone.  
"Huh?"  
Orli loops one arm around Elijah's neck, draws him in even more, and bends his head to murmur against the flushed curl of Elijah's ear.  
"It would be incredibly fuckin' hot if I knew you were watching me while I get myself off."  
Elijah's knees pretty much turn to liquid and he has to grab two fistfuls of Orli's tee shirt to hold himself up, which seems like an indication they're on the right track.  
"You wouldn't have to do anything, just watch," Orli goes on. "You okay with that?"  
Elijah nods vigorously but keeps his mouth shut tight, afraid of the squeak he'll emit if he actually tries to say anything.  
"Good."  
Orli lets go of Elijah, turns away, and walks as far as the bed. He glances around the room, spots the armchair, crosses to it, picks it up and brings it back, setting it down facing the foot of the bed. Orli sits on the end of the mattress opposite the empty chair.  
Elijah takes a deep breath to steady himself, walks resolutely across the room, and carefully lowers himself into the chair. Orli abruptly leans forward and hooks his hands behind Elijah's heels, lifting Elijah's feet onto the bed, one Doc Marten on each side of Orli's hips. Elijah gasps at the unexpected contact and the sudden shift of his weight back into the chair and Orli's cavalier disregard for Elijah's boots on the bed.  
"Are we sitting comfortably?" Orli smiles.  
Elijah manages a nod.  
"Okay. Here we go," Orli warns.  
Deliberately Orli leans back, leans back, lets himself fall back flat onto the bedspread, and Elijah recognizes the eyes wide, shoulders back, hands open, chin lifted posture of the fall from the tapes of Orli's canyon jumps. Orli wriggles a little to get more comfortable, and uses both hands to smooth his tee shirt upwards, exposing the pit of his navel and its neighboring sun-circle.  
Elijah's heart pounds frantically in his chest and at least some small fraction of his brain screams at him to get up and run, get out of here, this is too dangerous. But Orli doesn't look dangerous; he looks jittery and amused and absorbed in what he's doing.  
Orli's hands converge on the waist of his jeans, thumbing brass buttons through worn buttonholes. He lifts his hips off the bed a little and slides his jeans down onto his thighs, revealing bright orange boxer briefs stretched somewhat inadequately over the ridge of his erection.  
Elijah's gaze skitters away, up over bare skin and blackly inked flame-rays, over the rucked-up tee shirt that might be faintly tie-dyed in yellow or might have just been washed with the orange boxer-briefs, up to Orli's face. Orli's staring up at the ceiling, grinning like the insane fuck Elijah's beginning to suspect he is.  
Orli shifts, hips rolling to one side and then the other. Almost against his will, Elijah glances downwards again, and there's -- oh God, there's newly naked skin, fine, flawless, plush with the light-killing texture of velvet or vellum ... and Orli's long fingers curling delicately over the pale shaft of his cock and the pelt of smooth dark hair surrounding it.  
Elijah yanks his sight-line back to Orli's face. Orli's still looking at the ceiling but he's not finding it as amusing as before; his grin has given way to a look of careful concentration. Elijah feels weird staring at Orli when Orli's got that expression on his face, almost as weird as he feels looking at Orli's cock. He takes refuge in the relative safety of fastening his gaze firmly to the tattoo near Orli's navel, watching it flex and flatten with each rise and fall of Orli's breath.  
This is fine, Elijah tells himself, somewhat untruthfully. It's no different from two guys using urinals next to each other. As long as neither of you look anywhere out of bounds, it's perfectly okay that you're standing a foot apart with your cocks in your hands. Same principle at work here: Orli looks at the ceiling; Elijah looks at Orli's tattoo. No hands no harm no foul. They can just chalk it up to Elijah's compulsively touchy-feely friendliness and Orli's kamikaze sex-drive. They can laugh it off and then forget it ever happened.  
Without his being entirely aware of it, Elijah's gaze has drifted back up the length of Orli's torso. Orli's hand sweeps upwards to his own face; he licks wetly at the webbed angle of skin between his thumb and index finger. Elijah feels the red-hot rushing of something merciless in the back of his skull as well as his groin. Something well buried inside his chest cracks open. His body has been doing aroused and scared in about equal amounts; his brain's been doing distant and freaked in almost the same proportions. The sight of Orli's tongue curling around Orli's own hand just about opens the floodgates on aroused, and scared gets swept away on the riptide. With a single, pure signal coming from Elijah's body, Elijah's brain gets with the program; distant and freaked both burn out, leaving only a dark ashy hunger.  
Orli lowers his hand again, and the wet whisper of skin on skin makes the ache in Elijah's groin turn to a steady stabbing. Stealthily he draws his right hand from the arm of the chair and lets it rest lightly on the crotch of his jeans. He holds his breath, glancing at Orli's eyes again to make sure he's still looking straight up. Elijah presses down with the heel of his hand, sighs out his breath as the ache seems to both ease and increase from the contact.  
Elijah's sightline flicks downward, and his fingers spasm unconsciously at the sight of Orli's elegant fingers loosely encircling the head of his cock, moving slowly up and down. Elijah looks away, completely away, at the corner of the bed, the side of the dresser, the folds of the curtains, any damn thing else rather than Orli caressing himself.  
Elijah leans harder on his erection, trying to stifle the pulse pounding in his flesh, but of course the blood just leaps under the pressure of his palm. He looks back at Orli again, at Orli's fingertips tracing over pale taut skin, over the leaking slit at the tip of Orli's cock. Elijah grits his teeth and rocks his hand minutely back and forth, praying that Orli can't hear the tiny shift of skin and fabric over the click and whisper of his own wet fingers on his skin.  
Orli releases and then renews his grip on himself, his fingers tighter and his motion more deliberate. Elijah can't help heaving his own hips very slightly, pushing against his own hand.  
Orli makes a breath sound, just a harsh exhalation without any voice behind it, and Elijah looks at his face again. Orli's still staring up at the ceiling, and he's biting down hard on the side of his lower lip, the flesh stretched-tight and starred-white under his teeth.  
And Elijah thinks, how scrupulous he is in everything he does. Orli asked Elijah to watch; he never said anything about Elijah listening, or being looked at himself. The upward stare and the bitten lip are Orli's insurance against taking anything Elijah has not explicitly agreed to give.  
"Orli," Elijah says, and his voice comes out weirdly hoarse.  
Orli freezes.  
"Let it out man," Elijah says in his smoky new voice. "Let me hear you."  
Orli writhes, a long slow flex of his body as he rides the sudden pleasure tiding through his body. He laughs, a ragged broken gasping sound that Elijah's body seems to understand all too well. Elijah rubs his fingers against the small sodden patch of denim right over the tip of his own cock. Orli's hand starts to move again, quicker, more intent. Elijah's found the right contact for maximum friction between wet cotton and skin, rubbing himself with the flats of his fingers, matching Orli's escalating pace.  
"I'm watching you Orli," Elijah falters, scared of the sound of his own voice but desperate to wring something more from Orli.  
Orli inhales sharply, hips rocking steadily under his own touch. Abruptly he lifts one foot, bracing his boot heel on the edge of the bed, giving himself more leverage to fuck his hips up hard into his own fist. He's making tiny broken sounds, groans and moans and gasps that just fuel the fire pounding in Elijah's blood. Orli twitches feverishly.  
Elijah feels the warning shudder begin at the root of his spine. His fingers rub and claw and squeeze, trying desperately for the last particle of sensation necessary to put him over the edge.  
"Orli! Look at me," Elijah pleads.  
Orli whiplashes up onto one elbow, his black eyes blazing and his lips twisted into a snarl of naked greed. That's all it takes. Elijah's head goes back, fingers gripping himself tight, trying to hold off the inevitable, and when the spasms hit he hacks out a sound that starts as a curse and ends as a sob. Panting hard, still clutching the fading throb in his flesh, he drags his head forward again, opens his eyes, and looks at Orli.  
"Come on man, your turn," Elijah says breathlessly.  
Orli stays up on his elbow, gaze roaming between Elijah's dilated eyes and flushed mouth and stained jeans. Orli flinches and shudders at the intensity of the sensations he's cramming down his own nerves, his fingers quick and cunning and a little cruel.  
"Shit -- Elijah -- oh shit," he cries, pleasure and panic putting all kinds of weird sharp edges on his voice.  
"Yeah, come on, I wanna see you do it. I wanna see you … come."  
Orli's spine arches off the bed. His mouth opens in a strangled, almost silent scream that explodes into a full-blooded yell of delight. His fingers grip and muffle the top of his cock to avoid the mess of freefalling spunk -- the thick white fluid seeps rhythmically between his fingers, slides down his shaft into the pelt of his hair. He falls back flat onto his back, already laughing before he has any breath to laugh with. After a few seconds, he lifts his head again, considering his dripping hand dubiously.  
"I just made a complete fuckin' mess here," he grins.  
"Please. I'm sitting in mine," Elijah grimaces in amused disgust.  
Orli laughs harder.  
"You know, next time, take your frickin' jeans *down*," he manages to say.  
"There's gonna be a next time?" Elijah asks, hilarity giving way to something quieter and warmer and scarier.  
"Oh God, I fuckin' hope so," Orli says fervently. "That was mind-blowing."  
"Yeah," Elijah breathes, sliding further down into the armchair. "Yeah, it was. It really was."  



	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _For the first time in the course of this whole deranged thing with Orli, Elijah really feels like he knows what he's doing._

They do the same thing a couple more times over the course of the following week. Once, pretty much an exact reenactment of the first time, except that Orli's head and shoulders are propped up on a pile of pillows so it's more comfortable for him to watch Elijah when Elijah reaches the point where he wants Orli looking at him. And Elijah opens the fly of his jeans just enough to get his fingers onto bare skin. The third time, it's Orli who takes the chair while Elijah lies stretched on the bed with his jeans around his hips, blushing furiously through the whole thing, making him take longer to get off than he usually does, which just makes the ultimate release more devastating and the whole experience more addictive than ever.  
The weirdest thing about the developing situation is that it doesn't seem weird. The new pastime produces the same small incremental strengthening of their friendship as starting to surf together did. It's another fun, slightly crazy, physically focused stress release.  
Only two more nights are left before the circus packs up and returns to homebase in Wellington, and the hobbits are all reunited. John's planning a party for tomorrow night, so tonight most people just call it an early night. The hotel bar is deserted by ten. Elijah and Orli sit around for a while, drinking a little and talking a lot, about everything and anything and nothing. At about eleven, when the conversation's lapsed into comfortable silence and reflective beer mat shredding on Orli's part, Elijah asks almost without hesitation:  
"You wanna go upstairs? To your room?"  
Orli's distant gaze comes back into tight focus on Elijah's face, and the slight curl of his lips turns to a hard grin.  
"Sure."  
They get up, wander to the elevator, and get in. Orli presses the button for his floor and leans back, thumbs hooked into his hip pockets, smiling at Elijah. Elijah returns the smile but quickly looks away, suddenly interested in the ceiling of the elevator, the brass trim where the walls meet the floor, the scuff mark on the toe of Orli's boot, the frayed tuft of thread just beginning to poke out of the worn knee of Orli's jeans, the way the inside seam follows the --  
\-- Elijah stifles a small noise in his throat, his eyes tracing carefully over the curve half-distending the front of Orli's denims. Elijah's heart is already trained to skip and then speed at the sight.  
Orli knows he's being studied. He pushes his pelvis out a little further, drops his head back against the wall, eyeing Elijah from under half-lowered lashes.  
"Knock yourself out," he murmurs, and Elijah realizes this is how this started, one week and one day ago.  
Elijah takes a step closer. He reaches slowly, fingers stretched out, fingertips already humming from the anticipated rasp of denim and warmth of flesh. Orli's stance doesn't change noticeably, but the lines of his body turn spare and tense as he waits for this coveted first touch.  
The elevator comes to a halt and the doors sigh open; Orli makes a small disgusted noise and Elijah yanks his hand back to his side.  
"Come on," Orli urges, bounding forward and grabbing Elijah by the hand as he passes.  
They careen down the hallway together, laughing, and skitter to a halt outside Orli's door. Orli fumbles the keycard out of his back pocket, opens the door, tugs Elijah into the room with him. Elijah kicks the door shut again while Orli turns lights on. The armchair's now permanently resident at the foot of the bed. Elijah walks over and leans on the chair back, and Orli comes to the end of the bed and throws himself down, feet still on the floor, arms flung above his head.  
"So, I'm on the chair, again" Elijah says easily, coming around to the front of the chair.  
"No -- 'Lijah, let's -- we could lie on the bed, together," Orli suggests, struggling up onto his elbows, his narrowed eyes snapping sparks out of their black depths.  
Elijah blinks, not sure how to say no ... or yes.  
"It's okay," Orli says steadily. "While we're on the bed, everyone keeps their trousers the hell on. When you get to the point where you need to unfasten something, you move to the chair and I'll stay here. How's that sound?"  
"Reassuring."  
"Alright. Come on," Orli whoops, shifting higher on the bed until his head is resting on one pillow.  
Elijah launches himself at the bed, landing beside Orli and eliciting a groan of protest from the bedsprings. Elijah rolls onto his side and wiggles upwards a little more, putting himself at eyelevel with Orli. Orli turns to face him. They're about a foot apart along the length of their bodies, each resting his head on his lower arm, each with one hand free. Nobody's laughing anymore.  
Elijah reaches out, this time keeping his gaze on Orli's face, and his fingertips graze denim and trace down and inwards from the crest of a hipbone to --  
Orli's eyelids flicker quickly and he inhales sharply through his nose. Elijah thinks, that's it, that's as far as I got the first time ... further than I got just now in the elevator.  
Third time's a charm. Elijah cups his hand firmly over Orli's groin, fingers closing down on the rigid flesh. Orli's eyes slide closed and he writhes -- writhes -- so slowly and appreciatively, like a cat soaking in the sun.  
"You're hard," Elijah whispers, and Orli's mouth curves into a sly smile.  
"And fucking throbbing," he rasps, eyes still closed, and Elijah feels the words like a spill of warm honey on his skin.  
Elijah moves his hand slowly, up and down; Orli shivers into the sensation and then opens his eyes again.  
"Can I?" he whispers, and Elijah feels the warm ruffle of whiskey-scented breath on his lips.  
"Knock yourself out," Elijah murmurs, grinning.  
That grin gets smashed sideways into an open mouthed groan of ecstasy when Orli's long fingers curve over Elijah's erection and squeeze. Elijah tries to increase the force of the contact between his  
own hand and Orli's cock, but the angle's crap -- the inside of his wrist is aching and he can't apply real pressure except with the heel of his hand. Impatiently, Elijah pushes Orli away, onto his back.  
Orli flinches but instantly lifts both hands, palms out, in a placating "look, I've stopped already" gesture. And right off that, his eyes widen in shock as Elijah rolls with him, wedging one knee between Orli's legs and forcing them apart. Orli gives in at once, spreading his legs enough to let Elijah hitch himself onto Orli, his weight on his hands and his legs between Orli's thighs.  
Elijah lowers his weight, his pelvis coming down solidly onto Orli's, and Elijah gasps, the blood in his cock just surging at the extent and intensity of the contact between them. Orli arches under him and just yells, a wordless howl of gratification. Elijah leans down as hard as he can with the whole length of his body.  
"Lijah -- Lijah -- fuck fuck that's good," Orli growls, his fingers closing fiercely on Elijah's shoulders then sliding hastily down Elijah's sides to lock tight around Elijah's hips.  
Elijah grinds himself against Orli, hips flexing and rotating, driven partly by the incredible sensations ripping along his own nerves and partly by the sight of Orli under him, gasping and snarling and rolling his head from side to side. Orli's hips lift under Elijah, establishing a counter rhythm that increases the strength of the contact between them when they move together.  
For the first time in the course of this whole deranged thing with Orli, Elijah really feels like he knows what he's doing. He's still close enough to his early teenage years and their long hours of fully or semi-clothed groping; his body remembers all the nuances of press and lean and shift that maximize sensation through layers of fabric.  
Orli just clings to him, jaw clenched and eyes narrowed to jet-black slits, clearly trying hard to hold it together so he doesn't freak Elijah out by losing control. Elijah, however, is not feeling very freak-outable right now. On the contrary, he's feeling powerful and in control and determined to push this hard until something, in someone, snaps.  
"Come on Orli," he mutters. "Talk."  
"Oh -- fucking God!" Orli cries, Elijah's permission releasing the torrent of words pressing at his lips. "That's so fucking gorgeous."  
Orli's almost insane appreciation urges Elijah on. He pushes up onto his hands again, working the angle of his hips even more ruthlessly. Orli reacts with a shapeless moan of ecstasy that's more eloquent than any words.  
Oops … bad move, Elijah realizes. He's skittering dangerously close to the edge and the intensity of the contact between his body and Orli's will tip him any second now; time to move. Almost. One more second. Okay, two more. Okay --  
"Crap!" Elijah thrusts up onto his hands and knees, fiercely grateful that the sudden absence of stimulation produces an instant falling away in the urgency of his threatening orgasm.  
He tries to boost himself backwards, away from Orli and towards the chair. Orli's hand flashes out, gripping Elijah's arm.  
"Are you okay?" Orli demands.  
"Yeah, I'm good, I'm good, I just gotta -- I gotta move, I'm so fuckin' close," Elijah says in a rush.  
Something flickers behind Orli's eyes, and he doesn't let go of Elijah's arm.  
"Stay."  
"You don't get it man, another ten seconds of this and I'm a done deal. I gotta move now, unless you want me to come ..." Elijah's words slow and then stop altogether.  
" ... On me," Orli finishes for him, his voice barely a breath.  
"Oh fuck," Elijah whispers, and very slowly he lowers himself down, rotating his hips until they're perfectly cradled together again.  
He starts moving again, hesitantly at first, but he was so close to coming just thirty seconds ago that it only takes another half-minute before he feels the gathering lightening strike in the very pit of his stomach and Elijah gives up gives in gives Orli everything he's got left. Orli's hands claw at Elijah's back through the loose cotton of Elijah's shirt, and Orli spreads his legs wide and lifts his hips clear off the bed, giving Elijah more access, more encouragement to slide fall plunge --  
\-- off the side of the world, collapsing down onto the unyielding surface of Orli's outstretched body. Everything smears into red and black and a pounding that's dragging sweeping scouring everything out of Elijah's body and brain, and all he can do is cling to Orli and howl against the hard curve of Orli's shoulder.  
For a long moment, Elijah's nothing but careening breath and frantically beating heart; gradually bones and muscles and sinews and skin come back into focus, and beyond that Orli's hands on his spine, Orli's body still moving under him, Orli's cock still rock hard against the thrumming weakness and cooling wetness in Elijah's groin.  
Elijah forces his head up off Orli's shoulder. Orli's eyes are closed, fantastically long black eyelashes resting on the flushed skin of his cheekbones.  
"What do you need?" Elijah asks shakily.  
"Give me your hand," Orli murmurs, cracking his eyes open.  
Elijah shifts sideways, half off Orli's body, and presses his hand to the bulge of Orli's cock. Orli spreads his own broad hand over Elijah's smaller one, pressing down hard, pushing Elijah's fingertips against the sweetspot of already wet denim. Elijah forces himself to relax, to let his hand accept Orli's guidance. And at least some part of Elijah's brain is paying attention, taking notes for future reference ... Orli likes it hard, with almost a jerk at the end of the stroke ... how the fuck does he last this long? Fucking twenty-something, got more control than me, Elijah thinks irritably. Impossible to imagine Orli having self-control about anything.  
"Lij take your hand away," Orli says hurriedly. "I'm right there, I'll finish it."  
Elijah ignores the warning, keeps doing what he's doing, and doesn't answer.  
"Elijah! Don't -- I'm not kidding," Orli gasps, trying desperately and utterly failing to still his hips under Elijah's touch. "I'm so fucking close."  
"I don't care. Just do it."  
"Oh fuck … you're so *fucking* good … " Orli pleads.  
Elijah does a savage hook and upward scoop and downward press that has Orli thrashing, eyes squeezed shut and hands so tight on Elijah's shoulders that Elijah knows there'll be bruises. Orli tenses, every sinew and muscle stretched to absolute tearing point and then --  
\-- whiplash, spasms that wrack the entire length of Orli's body, perfectly synchronized with the small but powerful pulsing Elijah feels under his hand. Orli hacks out a series of harsh rhythmic exhalations. The spasms die away, replaced by a few long shuddering tremors. Orli swallows air like a surfacing swimmer. Elijah rolls onto his back, grinning manically.  
"Oh fuck. Okay, I think you just killed me," Orli complains breathlessly.  
"You're welcome," Elijah counters.  
"Fuckin' hell man," Orli grumbles, shifting uncomfortably under the cooling and clinging denim of his own jeans. "Now you've got me creamin' my jeans. I swear, nobody's getting their happy next time until my fuckin' jeans are *off*."  
Elijah smiles and shrugs.  
"You should put that armchair back where it belongs," he says mildly. "Hotel housekeeping frickin' hates it when the guests move the furniture around."


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Oh man -- what a fuckin' *rush*," Orli yells, voice rough with post-adrenaline shakes, and Elijah laughs too because that means he's as good as freefalling four hundred feet into a rocky chasm.

John's party the following night is a blast at the time and kind of a blur afterwards. Elijah's old enough to drink legally in New Zealand and John's very keen on "educating his palate", but all Elijah's palate has really learned so far is that any alcohol tastes better the more of it you have, and nothing gets you where you want to go more effectively than cheap tequila.  
The following night there's a free-for-all reunion party in Wellington, to be followed by a full weekend of no filming and no rehearsals, not even for those preparing combat scenes. Orli gets so utterly shit-faced that he accepts fifty New Zealand dollars from some of the wardrobe girls to stand on a coffee table and strip down to his underwear. For no extra charge, he finishes by turning around and mooning the highly appreciative audience. Elijah, passed out dead-drunk face-down on a couch, misses the whole thing, for which he's pretty sure he's profoundly grateful.  
Nothing more happens between Elijah and Orli over the weekend or for the rest of that week. At first, Elijah attributes this to Dom and Billy's presence. Astin was on location with Elijah and Orli over the last two weeks and he's a ferocious influence for good, but he liked to spend most evenings quietly in his hotel room ... and besides, some kinds of behavior are so far beyond his idea of acceptable that he'd never even suspect them of happening. Dom and Billy, on the other hand, are so willing to invest the most innocent remark or brush of the hand with homoerotic meaning that they've been accusing Elijah, Orli, and each other of being raving queens ever since they got here. Their observation is far more likely to hit the mark than Astin's, even if it is by accident.  
By Friday, however, Elijah begins to suspect that he and Orli are trying to demonstrate something to each other: they can quit any time they like. Nobody's hooked, nobody's craving it, nobody's beginning to think that a dry hump with a guy you know is more intense and more exciting than full-on sex with a girl whose name you didn't quite get. Elijah wonders how many days it takes to demonstrate indifference.  
The next weekend pretty much gets scheduled out of existence; Saturday's a full day of filming and Orli, Viggo, and John will be working nine-hour fight-rehearsals on Sundays for the foreseeable future. The four hobbits go surfing during the afternoon and make vague plans to hang out at Dom's house for the evening, until Orli calls to plead for company on an all-out assault on the bars and nightclubs of Wellington.  
"Peter blocked out the Helm's Deep scenes for us," he says, "and I just got a glimpse of my life for the next three an' a half months. I'm going to war, boys, and I may not make it back. You owe me a good send off."  
Astin takes a rain check, wisely electing to spend some quality time with his wife and child. The other three hobbits and the elf set out on their mission to, as Orli describes it, "get loud, legless, and laid, in about that order."  
Initially, things go exactly according to plan. With the exception of Orli when he's not partying, they'd all rather be loud than not anyway, and right now Orli's ready to party with a will, so he's whooping and hollering along with the rest of them. Elijah's a lightweight when it comes to alcohol tolerance, so he's practically guaranteed a win on the 'legless' part of the evening's schedule. Orli and Dom can do quite a bit better, but they start racking up empties at a rate that suggests they'll be as badly off as Elijah by the end of the night. Billy, of course, gets half as drunk as anyone else on a given amount of alcohol, so he compensates by drinking at least twice as fast.  
The 'laid' part seems more elusive, at least for Elijah and Orli. Dom and Billy have their technique down pat, and make steady progress collecting kisses and phone numbers in every bar and club the posse visits. Elijah and Orli, however, can't seem to hit their stride. They both start well enough, but they keep screwing up each other's follow-through. Over and over, each of them cuts across the other's suave chat-up lines, laughingly warning the girl about the other guy's unspeakable person hygiene and lack of sexual experience. Each girl reluctantly accepts that these two guys are expending way too much attention and energy on each other, and not enough on her. After being ditched for the third time in one club, Elijah and Orli cry damnation to all women and plunge into the press of bodies on the dance floor together. An hour later, Dom shoves his way through the crowd to them.  
"So, I'm gonna head home, yeah?" he yells over the pounding beat.  
Elijah gives him a thumbs up sign, Orli leans in closer to Dom.  
"Where's Billy?"  
"He -- he left a while ago."  
Elijah and Orli make exaggerated leers of approval.  
"Before closing time -- score for the girl who got Billy. She must be really hot," Elijah crows.  
Dom nods. "Okay, I really gotta go."  
Orli cranes over the crowd and spots the woman waiting near the bar, her eyes fixed on Dom.  
"Ye'ow," he says, grinning. "You better get over there man, she looks impatient."  
"Fuck you," Dom smiles.  
"You wish," Orli says pleasntly. Dom gives him the finger, turns around, and disappears back into the press of people.  
"Insane," Elijah laughs when Orli turns to him again, and Orli nods in agreement.  
Another half an hour on the dance floor, followed by a half hour at the bar, and Elijah regretfully considers his watch.  
"Midnight, and I've got feet at five fifteen. I should go home."  
"I'll go too," Orli shrugs. "If I'm really tired, the contacts feel like they're sitting on a layer of ground glass."  
They agree to share a taxi, stopping at Elijah's first since he's nearer. On the ride, they don't talk much, Orli staring out of the window and Elijah casting sidelong glances at him from time to time. Despite the silence and lack of eye contact, Elijah feels completely at ease. Dom and Billy are out of the way, Orli and he have stayed away from each other long enough to do credit to their self-control, and there's no big boundary to cross to get to Orli. They're friends, they mess around together, it's just a thing.  
The taxi pulls up on the circular drive in front of Elijah's apartment complex. Elijah gets out. Orli looks away from the window, meets Elijah's eye, but doesn't smile or say goodnight.  
"Don't make the guy drive all the way out to the beach. You can stay here," Elijah says, and the words cost him nothing, nothing at all.  
Orli looks uncertain, and Elijah lets the smile tingling behind his lips come out, shining encouragement and affirmation at Orli's shadowed eyes. Orli seems to get it.  
"Yeah, okay," he says, and his voice isn't quite as casual as it should be. He unfolds from his side of the back seat, pulls out his wallet and hands the driver a few bills.  
"Yeah, we're good," Elijah nods in response to the driver's questioning look. "Goodnight."  
He slams the door on his side, waits for Orli to circle behind the car, then walks to his front door. He snags his keys out of his jacket pocket and wrestles with the always-contrary lock.  
"You wanna beer?" he asks as he throws his keys onto the table and shrugs his jacket off, adding it to the things already hanging on the back of one of the dining chairs.  
"No thanks," Orli says, dropping his own jacket on the couch.  
"Okay, come on through then," Elijah responds, moving down the narrow hallway towards his bedroom, turning on lights as he goes.  
Orli, after a moment's hesitation, follows Elijah. By the time he reaches the open doorway of the bedroom, Elijah's half-reclining on his elbows on the end of the bed, legs splayed a little, socked feet flat on the floor. He gives Orli a wide, gap-toothed grin. Orli shifts uncertainly, won't quite meet Elijah's eye.  
"Lij, I kinda thought you didn't -- that you'd decided -- " Orli says doubtfully. Then, finally fixing Elijah with a serious gaze, he asks more resolutely, "are you sure you want to do this?"  
Elijah laughs, a short clipped sound just shy of a giggle.  
"No, I only asked you in so I could show you my sticker collection. *Yes*, I'm sure I wanna do this." Suddenly his eyes go round with dismay and he quickly sits upright. "Oh fuck, does that mean you don't want to --  
that you've changed your mind?" he demands in a rush.  
"No. No way," Orli protests, his eyebrows gathered anxiously but his lips already curling in a reassuring smile as he crosses the surf of clothing and magazines and assorted crap surrounding the bed and drops to his knees on the floor in front of Elijah. "I want to, I *really* want to. This shit is insane but I love it. It's ... different ... and ... really hot."  
Orli rubs his hands over Elijah's upper thighs as he speaks, and Elijah's eyes glimmer and glitter under lowering lashes. He lets himself sink back onto the bed, which pulls his hips a little further down on the mattress, so that Orli's hands -- though Orli hasn't moved -- are presented with Elijah's crotch instead of his thighs. Elijah shivers and smiles as Orli's firmly circling thumbs and fingertips continue to work slowly and methodically over his flesh, putting the finishing touches to the hard-on that's been bugging Elijah on and off all evening. Elijah stretches luxuriously, pushing his pelvis up under Orli's touch.  
"Meet you on the pillows," Elijah murmurs, gathering himself to move higher on the bed, but Orli grips Elijah's hips and holds him where he is.  
"No, wait a second."  
When Elijah slackens, Orli releases him, stands, walks round to the top of the bed, and gathers the pillows into a single heap against the headboard. Orli sits on the edge of the mattress and heels his sneakers off, turns his back into the pillows, and swings his feet up onto the bed. He settles with his legs spread wide and flexed at the knees, his heels firmly planted on the bedspread.  
Elijah, intrigued but kind of confused, rolls over and crawls on his hands and knees into the space between Orli's legs.  
"Turn around," Orli says, then, off Elijah's perplexed look, "turn around and sit down between my legs. Lean back against me."  
Elijah, frowning doubtfully, does as he's told, but slowly. When Elijah sits, Orli scoots his ass forward a little, putting his pelvis snugly against Elijah's behind. When Orli tries to guide Elijah back against his chest, Elijah's spine does an impression of a flat board, yielding to Orli's pulling but without bending or flexing in any way.  
"You're a little tense," Orli says mildly, feeling the whistling gap between him and Elijah everywhere except at Elijah's ass and shoulders. "Are you okay?"  
Elijah nods frantically, waiting for his voice to come back online. "Just a little confused," he manages, talking very fast. "Like, I'm not saying 'no'; I'm more saying 'what the fuck?'."  
Orli hums a pleased noise near Elijah's left ear. "Relax. It'll be good, I promise."  
"Pretty fuckin' sure of yourself there man," Elijah challenges, his breathing turning a little hectic, and his heart hammering hard at his breastbone.  
"Oh, I know it's going to be, because I'm going to ask you if every little thing I do feels good, and if you say 'no', I'm going to switch and do something else until I find the things you want," Orli says conversationally.  
Elijah's body curves blindly, pressing every inch of his spine firmly against the hard warm surface of Orli's chest and belly and hips. "Bring it on," Elijah says, but the bravado he's trying for is completely ruined by the slight shake in his voice.  
"So, do you want to open your jeans yourself?" Orli says softly. "Or do you want me to do it for you?"  
Elijah whimpers, not something he ever likes to hear himself do, but the sound just won't stay bottled up inside his chest.  
"It's okay, Lijah, you don't have to -- "  
"You!" Elijah cuts across Orli's gentle reassurance.  
Elijah could swear he hears Orli smiling, but that's not possible. Smiles don't make any noise, and besides Elijah couldn't hear anything through the rush of blood pulsing in his ears as Orli's long strong fingers hook the button at the waist of Elijah's jeans and flip it open. Elijah swallows hard as Orli snags the pull of the brass zipper and slides it carefully down. Orli's fingers on Elijah's bare stomach make Elijah flex and groan and let his head drop back against Orli's shoulder.  
"Is it good?" Orli asks quietly, his hands tenderly smoothing the two sides of Elijah's open jeans out of the way a little.  
"Oh ... yeah," Elijah breathes.  
Orli's hand slides into the open fly, cupping Elijah's erection through the cotton of his boxer briefs. The contact sends a white-hot shockwave through Elijah's body; he squeezes his eyes shut and twists his head hard against Orli's shoulder.  
"What about this?" Orli prompts, his mouth right against the tousled mess of Elijah's dark hair.  
Elijah tries to answer, but all that comes out between his clenched teeth is a series of hard exhalations that Orli brilliantly interprets as affirmative. Orli caresses lightly and teasingly downwards with just his fingertips, then strokes firmly upwards with the length of his fingers and the span of his palm. Down, then up, over and over again, slow enough to allow Elijah to feel each individual nerve-ending snap and fizzle like a stripped wire. Elijah starts to squirm, lifting his hips to intensify the pressure of Orli's touch, but Orli just modulates the movement of his hand to compensate for Elijah's writhing and wriggling, and Elijah's left with the same maddeningly incomplete sensation.  
Orli whispers against Elijah's hair again.  
"I want -- would it be good if I touched you ... skin on skin?"  
"Mmnph," Elijah answers astutely, one hand closing tight on Orli's hip under him, the other clenched in a fierce fist against his own thigh.  
"Lift your hips," Orli instructs gently.  
Elijah arches up hard, the muscles of his thighs quivering as he holds himself immobile while Orli's fingers work into the waistband of Elijah's underwear and ease them down off the crests of Elijah's hipbones. Another push and slide, and cotton and denim slip down onto Elijah's thighs and Elijah's erection flips free and lifts off his stomach impatiently. Elijah lets himself sink down on Orli again, and the rasp of Orli's jeans against Elijah's bare ass makes Elijah's eyes snap wide open with surprise; the solid ridge of Orli's hard-on pushing at Elijah's tailbone makes Elijah's mouth drop open in dismayed arousal. Orli's hand closes around Elijah, warm hard fingers wrapping lazily and lightly around the rigid flesh pulsing in time to Elijah's chaotic heartbeat.  
"Is this good?" Orli breathes, his fingers whispering weightlessly on Elijah's throbbing skin.  
"No," Elijah says vehemently, and before Orli has time to take his hand away, Elijah covers Orli's fingers and folds them tighter around Elijah's cock. "Do it, really do it."  
This time Orli exhales a little sigh of amusement that Elijah can't miss, and Elijah's own mouth curls into a sly smile as Orli's hand begins a slow but firm and deliberate stroking that racks the tension in Elijah's belly a little higher and tighter with every repeat. Elijah's hands move to Orli's thighs on either side; Elijah grips and grasps and works his fingers deep into the muscles, and feels Orli begin to shift slightly under him, Orli's hips matching the tempo of Orli's fingers. Elijah's body grows heavy and unresisting, and he gives himself up entirely to the support of Orli's chest and hips and encircling limbs.  
Orli's hand abruptly leaves Elijah's body, sweeping upwards past Elijah's half-slitted eyes. Elijah draws breath to complain when he hears the obscenely wet kiss of Orli's tongue working over his own fingers and palm. Something warm and frictionless slides around under Elijah's skin, making him shiver pleasurably.  
Orli's hand swoops back, and Elijah feels the sparkle of rough wet fingers on the silky dry skin at the head of his cock. Orli reestablishes the steady solid tempo of stroking, and Elijah's muscles and nerves and breath all go haywire, unsure whether to escape the overload of sensation or to just give up and drown in it.  
Orli's other hand scoops down into the heat and dampness between Elijah's legs, cupping and squeezing and lifting Elijah's balls, pulling gently, setting up a crosscurrent of sensation that runs over and under and through the surges of pleasure that pierce Elijah at each stroke of Orli's hand on his cock.  
"Oh ... fuck," Orli breathes against Elijah's ear, and Elijah feels Orli's hips cant and tilt more deliberately beneath him.  
"Hey, that's my -- line," Elijah says, his voice smearing out a little as he rocks up against Orli's hands and down against Orli's erection. Elijah digs his heels into the bed clothes and grips Orli's thighs, trying for a little more traction, a little more friction, just a little more and he's gonna come hard, and he should warn Orli off or Orli's gonna get --  
\-- the image of Orli's suntanned fingers splattered with Elijah's own come rips across the darkness behind Elijah's closed eyes. That would be so fuckin' hot. Only thing hotter than that would be --  
"Fuck! Stop it -- stop it," Elijah says urgently, trying to struggle into an upright sit again.  
"It's okay," Orli laughs. "I don't mind ... just do what you gotta do man."  
"Let go," Elijah growls, and Orli does, because Elijah's voice isn't his customary 'I'm good, you're good, everyone's good, and there's no need for anyone to get bent out of shape' voice; it's his rarely used but always effective 'I'm a fuckin' movie star so don't fuckin' piss me off' voice.  
Elijah, still wearing the frown of princely displeasure that goes with his movie star voice, turns round onto his knees and roughly tugs the buttons of Orli's fly open. Elijah's expression melts into something milder and more perplexed. He's working intently on stripping Orli's jeans down but his zeal is making him clumsy.  
"Well don't just lie there man, help," Elijah says impatiently.  
Orli arches, lifting his pelvis clear off the bed, and Elijah makes a very small 'oh' sound before shaking himself back into focus and successfully pulling Orli's jeans down to his knees. Orli's hands make for the waist of his madras-checked boxers, but Elijah bats him away.  
"I got it," Elijah says, and sure enough the elastic waist and soft cotton are easy compared to narrow denim jeans.  
Elijah hooks and lifts and slides the garment down and when he inhales he's hit with the warm salt body smell of Orli's skin; something in the pit of Elijah's stomach and in the knot of fire in his groin seems to know that scent already, and leaps in delighted recognition.  
"Legs together," Elijah says, and there's a tangling and untangling and lifting of legs to get Orli lying stretched out straight along the bed and Elijah's knees on either side of Orli's thighs. Elijah glances up at Orli, but Orli's black gaze is fixed on Elijah's bare skin. Elijah moves onto his hands and knees, positioning himself over Orli, then lowering slowly down and rocking and wriggling until their erections are aligned side by side, pressed between the heated skin of their abdomens.  
Elijah shifts enough to set his skin sliding against Orli's. Jagged-edged pleasure skips and snaps along Elijah's nerves, the sensation of skin on skin almost overwhelming. Elijah moves down, and up again, setting a cruelly slow pace. Orli clutches at Elijah, fingers biting deep into Elijah's shoulders and arms and ass.  
"Oh Christ. I'm not gonna last 'Lijah," Orli warns shakily. "That feels so fucking good."  
Elijah grins, working himself a little quicker on the slickening body beneath him.  
"It's okay, do what you gotta do," he husks, and Orli looks up at him and laughs breathlessly.  
"Okay," Orli says, and his hands grip Elijah's ass and he starts lifting into Elijah's rhythm, doubling the scope and strength of each contact.  
Elijah loves loves loves that Orli's losing control, finally moving without regard or reflection, focused purely on what he wants. Elijah hates that getting Orli to this point inevitably drags Elijah into the maelstrom along with him. Any minute now Elijah will lose sight of Orli, lose the hyperimage of Orli's head thrown back among the pillows, his lips drawn back from his teeth, his eyes slitted. Any minute now Elijah will lose the broken little sounds caught low in Orli's throat, and the smell of Orli's skin -- lose everything except touch. His only experience of Orli will be through his skin, Orli on and in and under his skin. Elijah jerks harder and faster against Orli, determined to drive him over the edge before Elijah falls himself. He feels the gearshift in Orli's body, how he stops struggling for or against what's happening to his body and just surrenders. Orli's hands move to Elijah's shoulders, to the nape of Elijah's neck, clinging to him, and Orli lifts his head from the pillow, seeking refuge for his face in the curve of Elijah's throat, his breath scouring and burning Elijah's skin.  
"Oh ... God ... help me," he rasps.  
"I'm already workin' my frickin' ass off here man," Elijah laughs.  
Orli laughs too, and that staccato break in his breathing turns suddenly to a sobbing gasping panting that slides inexorably into a sharp cry of relief. Elijah feels the pulsing pumping jerking of Orli's cock and the spill of liquid warmth and smoothness between their bodies. The sheer strangeness of the sensation -- his stomach wet with semen but his cock still rock hard and desire still dragging urgent claws through his guts -- gives Elijah a moment's pause and a small space for him to sidestep his own headlong rush into chaos. Orli's gulping air and wiping his palms over the shorn sides of his skull and grinning and laughing and laughing hysterically.  
"Oh man -- what a fuckin' *rush*," he yells, voice rough with post-adrenaline shakes, and Elijah laughs too because that means he's as good as freefalling four hundred feet into a rocky chasm.  
"My turn," Elijah purrs, beginning to shift again against Orli's stomach, the slip of semen making the sensation as sweetly smooth as silk whispering past his skin.  
"Oh God -- no," Orli laughs, his pelvis pressing down into the mattress in an attempt to escape Elijah. "Too much -- way too much. Keep doing that and it's gonna be my fuckin' eyeballs that come flying out."  
"I wanna see that," Elijah protests.  
"Off!" Orli howls.  
Elijah, fake pouting with disgust, slides to one side, one leg still draped over Orli's thighs, and rests his head on Orli's shoulder. Orli swipes one hand over his own stomach, coating his palm and fingers in his own come, and reaches down, wrapping his fingers firmly around Elijah's cock. Elijah makes a blurry, humming noise of approval. Orli starts a lazy pulling stroke with a little twist at the end that makes Elijah's breath hitch and his heartbeat get shaky.  
"Is it good?" Orli whispers against Elijah's hair.  
Elijah moans in a strongly affirmative fashion, his hips moving in counterpoint to Orli's hand, driving the pace a little quicker, a little harder. Orli obliges, matching Elijah's rhythm; Elijah ratchets it up higher, again Orli follows. Elijah's breathing hard, his teeth gritted, his fingers twisted tight in the faded cotton of Orli's shirt.  
"Yes come on I want I want -- " Elijah says feverishly, one hand hooking around Orli's neck and hanging on for dear life, his body twisting a little, ensuring he's directly facing Orli.  
"What do you want, Lij?" Orli urges.  
"That -- right there -- right -- yes. Shit!" Elijah gasps, his spine flexing and curling and shuddering as Orli laughs triumphantly at Elijah's come spattering on Orli's fingers and stomach and the hem of his shirt. "Oh yeah, that was it," Elijah pants, still shivering as the aftershocks sparkle on his nerves.  
For a while Elijah just lies there trying to reassemble the blasted apart bits of himself. Orli's fingers are still moving lightly and lazily on Elijah's soaked and softened flesh; the silvery tingle interferes with the fragments of Elijah's brain trying to put themselves back together again.  
"You okay?" Orli asks, his fingers stilling for a second.  
"Mmm ... don't stop," Elijah murmurs.  
Orli's fingertips resume their slow tease.  
"You want something to eat? We could order in," Orli prompts after a few more minutes.  
"Mmm ... "  
"Pizza or Chinese?"  
"Mmm ... "  
"Are you paying any attention whatsoever?"  
"Mmm ... "  
"White Stripes are inane, complete crap."  
"Mmm ... "  
"Jesus. Did *I* do this to you?"  
"Mmm hmm."  
"I'm sorry man."  
"Make it up to me," Elijah purrs, pushing against Orli's fingers enough to make Orli aware of the renewed firming of Elijah's flesh.  
Orli shifts on the pillow, looking down at Elijah's profile with disbelief.  
"You've got to be joking."  
"Eighteen years old man," Elijah grins against Orli's shoulder. "Recovery time measured in milliseconds."  
Orli makes a noise conveying general disgust and disbelief and desire, and Elijah grins wider and begins to trace his fingertips delicately over Orli's naked hip.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Elijah owns a lot of clothes ... really a lot._

Elijah owns a lot of clothes ... really a lot. There are too many to fit in the closets and dressers and storage boxes shoved under his bed. Clothes spill out, hang on doors and drawers and the backs of chairs, pile in semi-folded, semi-tangled heaps on every horizontal surface, including the bed. Elijah's a peacock; he also hates doing laundry. He can generally manage to last at least six weeks before he's reduced to wearing a silver satin shirt and black leather jeans to makeup call at five in the morning. The other hobbits whoop and whistle and Billy pats his ass, and Elijah realizes it's time to do laundry again.  
Elijah *did* laundry two scant weeks ago, but he's already running out of wearable denims. Grumbling bitterly, he lugs a plastic laundry basket brimming with blue and black jeans into the tiny dark annex behind his kitchen where the washer and drier live out their generally untroubled lives. He dumps the basket on top of the drier, flips on the overhead light, and starts shoving jeans into the washer.  
"Hell," he mutters, unable to believe he's back here again -- and so soon.  
Seems like there's a million pairs of jeans in the basket, and most of them have some crap stuffed in every single one of their five pockets. Elijah empties pockets like he's gutting fish, his nose wrinkled up and his upper lip curled in disgust. Emptying front hip pockets forces his attention to the area around the fly of each garment. Pair after pair pass through his hands, all bearing some variation of a slightly stiffened cloudy stain on the crotch, some pairs marked once near the hip, other pairs marked on both sides of the fly. There are a couple of black cotton shirts too, the front tails stained pale and crisp. Elijah reaches the end of the basket and realizes he's been keeping mental count: ten pairs of denims.  
"I am so fuckin' fucked up," he sighs, brows and lips twisting in dismayed amusement.  
Ten pairs of denims ... four times he's done stuff with Orli. That means he's reenacted those four occasions six more times for his private amusement. That ratio says nothing good about his mental state, and it's playing frickin' havoc with his clothes. Elijah reaches down into the washer tub, passing his fingers over the tangle of faded knees and pockets and buttons. Six of the ten pairs represent his own inexorable yet surprisingly unalarming descent into insanity, but four pairs represent --  
"Just so fuckin' ... " Elijah whispers, his head dropping and his eyes sliding half-shut.  
\-- four pairs represent Orli. Orli's easy smile and quick laughter, how Orli -- like Elijah -- believes with all his heart that his life is *great* and bound to get even better, how Orli is freakishly adrenaline-addicted, and at the same time restfully serene. Orli, who's always gracious and accepting, who loves people and knows how easily they can break, who treats everyone with a little more gentleness than even he thinks they need. Orli, receiving Elijah's blundering advance with such compassionate grace. Orli, leading them both so carefully, always offering Elijah just a little less than Elijah really wants, so that Elijah is left free to make the spring himself between what feels safe and what feels really fucking good.  
Elijah makes a small sound, maybe a groan muffled as he catches his lower lip between his teeth. He folds his arms on the edge of the open washer and rests his head on his forearm. He moves a little, hips flexing minutely back and forth, fingers closing tight around the bones of his own wrists.  
Everything, just everything. Orli's suntanned stomach and his broad callused palms and his narrow hips and the way he bares his teeth and his voice turns rough and ragged when he --  
\-- Elijah pushes upright again, his breath coming quick and unsteady. He glances around, trying to figure out where the hell he is and what he's doing. This isn't right, he needs to be sitting in an armchair or lying on the bed. He turns towards the door, looks back at the open washer full of jeans. He shrugs it off; fuck, let'em wait. There'll be another pair to add to the load in a while.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elijah's really glad that he and Orli did the whole abstinence thing last week, because it makes him less concerned that, this week, they can't keep their freakin' hands off each other.

Elijah's really glad that he and Orli did the whole abstinence thing last week, because it makes him less concerned that, this week, they can't keep their freakin' hands off each other. Thankfully, they're not actually filming together or all hell would break loose pretty damn quick. Orli and Viggo and Bret spend their days slogging across scenic hills and valleys in pursuit of hobbit-napping orcs. Orli can't let it seem like slogging, of course; he's got to look like he can keep this pace up day and night, forever if necessary. Elijah and Sean hike across the most incredible rock formations Elijah has ever seen; his toughest acting challenge is emoting determination and growing dread, when what he feels is wonder and gratitude. Dom and Billy are trapped on the fourteen-hour a day treadmill of soundstage shooting, perched in the branches of an animatronic tree that needs far more takes to get each shot than Dom and Billy do.  
The shooting schedule keeps Elijah and Orli apart at least twelve hours a day, and they haven't spent more than a fraction of any night together, always going their separate ways to sleep even if it's just one of them leaving the bed for the couch. Twice, Elijah's gone straight from shooting to late-into-the-night script sessions with Pete and Fran and Philippa. All of which makes it pretty impressive that, from Monday morning to Sunday evening, Elijah and Orli have managed to make out together a total of thirteen mind-blowing body-wrecking times.  
Every night, no matter how late it is when Elijah's done for the day, he heads for Orli's house on the beach, and two minutes after he arrives they're tangled up together on Orli's bed or Orli's couch, shirts gathered up around their ribcages and jeans shoved down around their knees. Sometimes Elijah gets to Orli's house early enough for them to do it once, hang around eating takeout and drinking beer and talking about random crap for a couple of hours, and then do it again before Elijah leaves for home. On other occasions the first time and the second aren't really all that separate, Orli's teasing after-play and Elijah's juvenile recovery time combining to make Elijah ready again in ten minutes; that second climax is always harder won, and by then Orli's ready for another bout himself.  
Over the course of the week, they work out the refinements of all they've done so far: how Orli can stand stronger stimulation than Elijah but becomes unbearably sensitive after he comes, while Elijah needs somewhat gentler handling but by continuous stroking can be persuaded pretty much directly from one erection to the next. There's still plenty they haven't done: skin-to-skin contact is restricted to below the ribcage and above the knees and only on the front of their bodies. Hands on an uncovered neck or ass are okay, but only in the heat of passion. The casually affectionate touches to hair and face that happen so blithely in public are somehow off limits when they're alone together. The nearest they've ever come to kissing is one of them pressing his profile into the other's throat, or speaking softly against the other's hair, or biting down on the  
other's shirt and shoulder to stifle a cry of pleasure.  
Monday to Saturday, the long hours of filming keep Elijah grounded; eating and sleeping and messing around with Orli fill up the rest of his time, and the days and nights go by too quickly to be arduous. On Sunday, however, Elijah has only a morning script meeting and then an empty afternoon and evening. There's a scant plan to have all four hobbits hang out at Sean's house but Elijah begs off, claiming to be so tired that all he wants to do is eat snacks and sleep. And it must be true: he spends the day lying around the house, vaguely discontented but reluctant to do anything else.  
In the early evening, Sean calls to tell Elijah that Christine's cooking up a storm and Elijah's still welcome to come over. On the spur of the moment, Elijah tells Sean he can't because he's planning to pick Orli up from fight-rehearsal and give him a ride home, since Orli's jeep is out of commission for the weekend while the dent in the driver's door gets hammered out. Sean accepts that at face value, as anyone would; an act of quiet consideration from Elijah is as routinely characteristic as Billy's grumbling about the weak-ass beer everywhere in the world except Scotland, or Orli's announcing he's just going to step outside to stick his head in the ocean.  
So a little before six, Elijah drives downtown to the martial arts gym being used for the Sunday rehearsals. They're not quite done, so Elijah takes a seat on the bench along the wall, next to Bob. Viggo, in blue jeans and sneakers and a tee shirt under Aragorn's surcoat and sword belt and outer coat, is going toe to toe with three stunt actors armed with wicked looking steel machetes. Orli, in ragged cargo pants and a tee shirt printed with the Union Jack, with Legolas's knife sheath and quiver over his shoulder, is surrounded by half a dozen more stunt actors.  
Orli holds his bow horizontally in front of his chest, using it like a Jojutsu staff, striking out with the bow's sharp ends. He drops four of his opponents then abruptly releases one handhold, whips the bow in a circle above his head, and lashes out at one of the two survivors. When that stunt actor falls back, the final survivor moves in from behind; Orli snaps round, holding the bow two-handed again, and jabs ruthlessly at the other actor's face, the bow tip screeching to a halt a few inches from the guy's right eye. Both men freeze, knowing that this shot will eventually be fused to an effects shot of the half-blinded Uruk.  
"Good -- let's call that a day," Bob says in grudging approval.  
"Hey," Orli says to Elijah in greeting, when Orli's said thanks to his group and crossed to the bench.  
"That was awesome," Elijah grins, as Orli sets his bow down and works on the silver buckle on his chest. "I'm completely jealous," Elijah goes on. "Everyone gets to fight except me -- even Astin. I get to cry and run away."  
Orli shrugs his quiver and sheath off over his head and lays them down too.  
"Yeah, but in a very manly way," he soothes.  
Elijah grimaces, then grins again.  
"You wanna a ride home?"  
"Thanks. I came with Viggo, but it's really way the hell out of his way," Orli says. Turning towards the huddle of Viggo and the stunt actors from Viggo's group, he calls, "Vig -- I'm goin' with Elijah. See you tomorrow man."  
Viggo lifts the pommel of his sword in acknowledgement.  
"Tired?" Elijah asks, when he and Orli are sitting in the car and Orli's letting his head drop back against the seat rest.  
"Not much ... I feel good," Orli smiles lazily. "You got anywhere you have to be this evening?"  
"Nope. You wanna hang out? The two of us?"  
"Hell yeah."  
Elijah smirks, then shifts his attention to getting the car out of the parking space and into the sparse flow of Sunday evening traffic in downtown Wellington.  
"I thought ... maybe we could do something a little different," Elijah says blandly, his attention apparently still focused on traffic flow.  
Orli doesn't move, but something black and bad flickers behind his eyes, and his smile twitches tighter.  
"Different like what?"  
"I thought maybe ... we could go to my place ... instead of yours."  
Orli laughs, a short sound, half amusement and half self-mockery.  
"Kinky bastard," he teases. "Okay, your place."  
* * * *  
"We should have gone to my place," Orli says dryly from the bedroom doorway. "We can find the bed, at least."  
"We always go to your place," Elijah responds, sweeping piles of clothes and books off the bed and onto the floor.  
"Because we can find the bed."  
"What are you? Martha frickin' Stewart?" Elijah complains, irritated beyond belief by the hard-on throbbing imperiously in his jeans and the amount of time it's taking him to establish a flat surface for them to lie down on.  
"Jesus, decor's still a ways away here," Orli protests. "Finding the larger furniture items would be a start."  
Elijah scoops the last armful of junk off the bed and flings it into the corner, then rounds on Orli.  
"Orli, you're some kind of insane fuckin' neat freak, and I'm not. You wanna have a problem with that, you can fuckin' blow me."  
There's a ringing silence like the ones that come after a thunderbolt crashes directly overhead.  
"Oh -- shit -- I didn't mean -- it wasn't -- you don't -- " Elijah fumbles, eyes growing rounder by the second and a burning blush spreading from his cheeks to the bridge of his nose and the tips of his ears.  
Orli's expression of blank disbelief has already morphed into intrigued consideration. "I know, but would it completely freak you out if I did?"  
Oh, there's a line, we're crossing a line, Elijah thinks to himself. It feels like flying over a highway in a plane that's three thousand feet up. The highway's a tiny thread of gray far below; it might have significance to those on the ground, but to Elijah cruising effortlessly though the stratosphere, it's nothing, it means nothing ...  
"Yeah, probably," Elijah says in answer to Orli's question.  
"So that's a thanks but no thanks?"  
"Not -- necessarily," Elijah says recklessly, inspired by the way his blood's shimmying under his skin.  
Orli steps away from the doorway and comes to Elijah. Elijah, startled as much by Orli's abruptness as by the full-blown hellfire glittering in Orli's dark eyes, tries to back up a step and the edge of the mattress takes him behind the knees and he drops onto the bed, heels scrabbling for purchase on the floor boards, hands fisted in the bed covers, trying to pull himself further away. Orli crawls onto the bed after him, knees straddling Elijah's thighs, hands quick and sure on Elijah's belt buckle and the top button of Elijah's jeans. Elijah shifts a little, then more emphatically, one second away from struggling for real. This whole thing is unraveling too fast, sweeping Elijah to somewhere he's not sure he's got the guts to go.  
"Elijah ... it's okay," Orli says earnestly, hands on Elijah's hips and weight on Elijah's thighs pressing Elijah down into the softness of the bed. "You know if you really want me to stop, I will. We can have a safe word."  
"A ... what?"  
"You know, a safe word. Something specific for you to say, and I'll know when you say it that you want me to just stop, no fuckin' around."  
"Okay ... what's the safe word?"  
"How about 'get the fuck off me, freak'?"  
Elijah laughs, and the vibration of his body under Orli's weight sends a sweet stabbing along his nerves.  
"Got it," he smiles, and Orli grins back.  
Orli lifts his weight off Elijah, gets Elijah's jeans open, rucks them and Elijah's underwear down over Elijah's hips. Elijah lifts helpfully, still smiling in anticipation until something deep inside him suddenly squirms painfully, as the raw intimacy of what they're going to do unexpectedly reveals itself to him.  
"Orli ... ? Is this ... are you ... "  
Orli glances up at Elijah, dark eyes questioning, and Elijah gets a sinking feeling as he realizes Orli expects him to have more to go with that attempt at a sentence.  
"Do you even know what you're doing?" Elijah finishes in a rush, because he can't get any closer to the questions he really wants to ask.  
"Duh, *no*," Orli answers at once. "But -- how hard can it be?"  
Elijah doesn't find this particularly reassuring, as Orli's applied the same argument at various times to riding a horse, walking a bridge-rail, and paddling a canoe, all with hair-raising consequences.  
"Women do it," Orli goes on, "and I don't think there's like *classes* for them or anything. I think they just figure it out. And I've had it done to me, that's gotta count for something, right? You too, yeah?"  
"Yeah, some," Elijah admits, half-amused and half-appalled at this line of reasoning.  
"Yeah, so you know how it's meant to feel -- you can make helpful suggestions an'stuff."  
"Sure," Elijah says, though his eyebrows twist doubtfully. It's kinda touching that Orli thinks Elijah will be capable of coherent -- much less instructive -- speech if Orli really goes through with this.  
"Excellent. Scoot up."  
Elijah does a kind of reverse commando crawl on his elbows and ass, wriggling higher on the bed, and Orli holds Elijah's jeans in place so the same movement shifts them down to Elijah's knees. Elijah's heart is all over the place, pulse flinging itself frantically against his ribcage and stomach and throat and tongue tip. Tendrils of heat and beat and ache twist through Elijah's body, escapees from the burning pounding ravenous energy gathering in the deepest pit of his stomach. Orli, on his hands and knees over Elijah, his head dropped enough to display the elegant line from skull to ear to neck, exhales hard and Elijah feels the ruffle of air on his own skin and he twitches, tiny nerve endings delicately flayed bare by the sensation. Orli gently covers Elijah's hands with his own, pressing them down into the mattress beside Elijah's thighs, and bows his head a little further, a little further still, his back arching and the ridge of his spine plainly marked under the thin layer of tee shirt cotton.  
Lines, lines, they're crossing so many lines so fast that the lines all blur together like those corrugations at the side of the highway designed to warn you when you drift too far, but Elijah already *knows* he's veering dangerously. Elijah stares in fascination at Orli, who's staring straight down, inhaling carefully, tasting the air. Elijah's muscles jump under each feather-light touch of Orli's breath, and Elijah's cock bobs upwards ever so slightly.  
"Orli ... " Elijah whispers, not trusting his voice.  
Orli abruptly bows down into the final inches of space between them, as if avoiding having to answer Elijah, or as if -- this is his answer. At first there's just a quicker and closer disheveling of the air against Elijah's skin, then breath-warm, petal-soft mouth-touches on the shaft of Elijah's cock. Elijah's hands twist under Orli's, tangling their fingers together. Orli's grip tightens reassuringly, while his kisses fall with no change in rhythm ... weightless and warm and killingly soft.  
Elijah makes the mistake of watching, letting his eyes snag on the impossible juxtaposition of Orli's lips and Elijah's rigid cock. Elijah's breath shatters in his chest. Orli switches from soft lip-kisses to light swipes with his tongue tip, and the sight of those kitten-licks being laid down so carefully onto Elijah's shaft makes Elijah clutch Orli's fingers more tightly than ever and arch a little. Orli hums a little noise of approbation and encouragement; Elijah's cock jerks appreciatively, and Orli's mouth curls into an amused smile at Elijah's faint bump against Orli's parted lips. Orli untangles one hand from Elijah's grasp and takes hold of Elijah's cock, low down at the base. Orli's tongue starts to work carefully and methodically along the ridge of Elijah's cock, between shaft and head. Elijah closes his eyes, breathing very carefully for fear of somehow shattering the perfection of the contact.  
Orli takes a single swipe at the leaking slit at the tip of Elijah's penis. Elijah gasps, eyes flashing open again. He's felt this before, felt himself falling and sliding down through the essence of softness, felt his nerves unravel into the overload of such a suddenly resolved sensation. But he's never seen --  
\-- seen Orli's straight dark brows drawn together a little, his eyes almost closed, lost in concentration as he thoughtfully savors the taste of Elijah on his tongue. After a few seconds, Orli dips and repeats the deliberate lick over the opening, then pauses again, considering --  
Orli folds down onto his elbows and takes the very tip of Elijah's cock between his lips. Elijah forces himself to stillness, just accepting the silky wet billowing inside Orli's mouth and the agonizingly good pull of Orli's tentative sucking; it feels like Orli has snagged Elijah's tailbone and is trying to draw it gently out through his cock. Orli draws back, surveys the terrain carefully, and dips his head again. His mouth closes over the head of Elijah's cock completely, lips tucking neatly into the depression between head and shaft.  
This is getting less and less like anything Elijah's ever felt before. It isn't calculated teasing, meant to excite him; this is Orli -- crazy sexy unselfconscious -- carefully learning Elijah's skin one tiny patch at a time. Orli gets a little bolder, and a lot more curious; he experiments with his lips' slow clinging drag and his tongue's bright brief spangle and his mouth's delicate release and recapture around the head of Elijah's cock. Elijah's nerves turn white-hot under his skin while something feathery and sharp-clawed stirs in his guts. Orli draws away, pushing back up from his elbows.  
"Okay, let's do this," he murmurs, mostly to himself.  
Elijah's confused, because he thought they *were* doing it.  
Orli kneels upright, unbuttoning his jeans and pushing them down on his thighs. Elijah watches, his eyes widening.  
"Orli -- I gotta be honest -- I don't know if -- "  
Orli looks up, waits expectantly, and Elijah's heart thuds, knowing he's really going to have to say it.  
"I don't know if I can -- y'know -- return the favor."  
Orli grins, big wide sparkly smile and long narrowed sparkly eyes.  
"I didn't expect -- I know you can't -- it's fine. Believe me, it's so much more than fine."  
Orli returns his attention to freeing himself from his underwear too. Elijah relaxes back on the bed, though he's frowning a little.  
He *knows* I can't? Where the fuck does that come from? He doesn't know the first frickin' thing about what I *can* ...  
"Oh God," Elijah slurs aloud as Orli's fingers rewrap around the root of Elijah's cock and Orli's mouth takes him again. Orli sets up a kind of pattern -- capture, downward slide of encircling lips, swirl of tongue, slow withdraw and kiss of cool air on wet skin, release, repeat, repeat ... don't stop ...  
Elijah presses back into the mattress, fighting a strong urge to thrash and buck under Orli's mouth. Elijah's spine arches up tightly, and he twists his fingers in the bed cover to resist the impulse to grab at Orli. The only relief of tension Elijah allows himself is the harsh hiss of his breath though his clenched teeth. Orli's mouth slides further down, further down. Elijah's breathing turns desperate, delirious, a rhythmic strangle and release that's more animal than human. Orli's free hand closes on Elijah's hipbone; Elijah covers that hand with his own, and this time it's Orli whose fingers turn and twist and cling to Elijah's.  
Elijah jumps at the unexpected touch of a pulsing, killingly soft something on the head of his cock, and Orli makes a noise like a cough except it comes out through his nostrils and his fingers twitch in Elijah's grasp and Elijah realizes that was the back of Orli's throat. Orli backs off but doesn't disconnect, and Elijah feels the ghost whisper of muscles moving when Orli swallows and breathes deeply for a moment.  
Elijah reaches out with the hand that Orli's not holding, and his fingertips graze gently over the naked side of Orli's skull. As if that touch releases asks orders him, Orli resumes, but this time instead of each stroke of his mouth beginning and ending with a broken connection, he lets the parts of the pattern blur together, up and down and never entirely away. Orli's fingers flex and spread a little around the base of Elijah's cock; the lift and duck of Orli's head become broader and more emphatic as Orli becomes confident his hand is in the right position to stop him overshooting his own gag reflex. Orli's other hand disengages from Elijah's grip and Orli reaches down between his own legs and Elijah can feel that too, in the hum of vibration in Orli's throat and the growing avidity of Orli's mouth. Elijah grabs hold of the pillow behind his head with both fists and squeezes hard, trying to manage the overwhelming pleasure sweeping along his nerves by imposing this controllable discomfort of hand muscles cramping and aching.  
Orli's got it now, got the rhythm of stroke and breath and swallow and steady incremental increase in speed and pressure, got his fingers wrapped around Elijah and around himself, making the same small insistent rocking motion on both of them. Elijah squirms and twists and almost struggles.  
"Oh -- fuck -- *Jesus* fuck," Elijah gasps.  
Everything in Elijah's body is simultaneously coiling and knotting and pulling taut, and unraveling and falling and turning to liquid heat. His skin is alive, every particle straining for some contact, some relief. He wants something, everything, more of this, more *than* this.  
"Stop," Elijah says, and again, when his voice doesn't actually work the first time, "Orli, stop!"  
Orli hums in outraged protest, a thick vibration against Elijah's cock that sends shivers clear down to Elijah's heels.  
"No, come on," Elijah insists frantically. "The safe word thing, y'know, the 'get the fuck whatever' thing."  
Orli groans bitterly and drags his mouth off Elijah and lets his weight roll onto one elbow and glares resentfully up at Elijah. Elijah blinks, not at all prepared for the sight of Orli with his lips flushed and swollen and shining wetly, his eyes heavy-lidded and grudging.  
"I -- I wanna do it to you," Elijah says fiercely, and Orli's annoyance promptly evaporates into a lop-sided smile.  
"But ... I don't want to stop."  
"Oh," Elijah says, not sure if that's a 'no' or a 'later'.  
"Sixty nine," Orli says brightly.  
The meaning becomes clear to Elijah exactly one nanosecond before he says 'what?' and really fuckin' embarresses himself. As it is, the urge to blurt out 'God Orli you're so fucking sexed up it's unreal' takes serious quashing. Orli scoots round on the bed, Elijah looking to him for guidance and taking up position with respect to Orli's body. Orli settles on his side, his head propped on his hand, his elbow pressing a dip into the mattress, his spine slouched into a curl to compensate for his greater length of torso.  
Hmm, this is interesting, Elijah thinks. Here's an angle he's never seen before, from Orli's bare thighs and balls and the slant line of the underside of his cock -- gravity and erection coming to a forty-five degree compromise -- past the dark smooth pelt of hair on his pubic bone and the smooth expanse of tanned stomach and the bunched up hem of Orli's Union Jack tee shirt. Elijah shifts closer, draping his top arm casually over Orli's uppermost hip. He tries to duck forward, press his face to Orli's flesh, but his spine doesn't want to obey.  
"You don't have to do anything 'Lij," Orli says quietly, and the words ruffle hot against Elijah's own erection. "I can feel you breathing on me ... it feels good."  
And Elijah might have taken that at face value, except Orli's hand spreads over one side of Elijah's bare ass and Orli's mouth engulfs Elijah's cock, and Orli starts sucking -- steady and sure and so pleased with himself. Screw you, Elijah thinks irritably, or as irritably as he can with pleasure drenching and tiding through his flesh. Elijah pushes nearer, and Orli smells like seawater, seawater stewing off from wet sand under a hot sun. Elijah figures it out: let the wave tell your body what to do and when to do it. He takes hold of Orli's cock and as the next roll and rush of pleasure lifts him, he moves forward on his own breath, mouth open, eyes closed, and just lets it -- happen -- flow -- refuses to let the strangeness or the salt or the agonized sound Orli makes distract him.  
The second Elijah's lips close around Orli's cock, Elijah completely understands -- they're a circuit now. The more he gives to Orli, the more Orli gives to him. Intense sexual pleasure always works wonders for Elijah's pain threshold, and it seems to have an equally salutary effect on his skittish nerves and his gag reflex. This is easy, like watching Orli through Elijah's skin, the sensations of Orli's lips and tongue and throat on Elijah's cock explaining every nuance of movement and breath and control to Elijah. All he has to do is copy, and every time he does, Orli drives the pressure and pace a little harder, and Elijah learns a little more.  
Abruptly Orli pulls back, shoving Elijah away with both hands and rolling him onto his spine even as Orli says urgently  
"On your back"  
and Elijah lets it happen, lies unresisting as Orli moves to cover him, knees resting somewhere behind Elijah's head, body curving vault-like above Elijah, shutting out some of the light, shutting out the real world, the one where Elijah isn't ready for this. Orli, spine arched and head dipped, captures Elijah's cock in his mouth again, sinking down on his elbows to support his weight. Elijah cries out, a rawer more helpless sound than Orli has ever dragged from him before. Elijah grips Orli's hips and guides them down and forward a little, lifts him head from the mattress and lets the weight and sway of Orli's cock do the rest, setting itself blindly in place between Elijah's lips.  
If pleasure makes Elijah reckless, this sense of being covered and controlled makes him something beyond reckless. A hunger Elijah didn't even know he had: Orli's body hemming him in. Orli's a gentleman, doesn't thrust or shove, just rocks his hips enough to set their common tempo. Elijah, chin tipped up and throat stretched out, finds a novel kind of safety in complete surrender, lifting and dropping his head, focusing on accepting as much of Orli's length as he can. Wants it all, wants Orli to use him up and wring him out. Everything in and on Elijah's body is pulled taut by pleasure, pulled open and quivering and tensed for disaster. His skin feels like it's peeling back from his muscles and his muscles like they're peeling back from his bones and his bones are trying to bend and shatter and release --  
\-- Elijah convulses, breath bellowing through his nostrils, throat working to manage the scream of agonized bliss trapped between Elijah's mouth and Orli's cock. The spasms rip down his body and back up, beating against his tongue, and suddenly there's a thick salt not-quite blood-heat something materializing in Elijah's mouth and it takes him a second to understand that it's come, Orli's come, and the down-deep tidal-drag of Orli's mouth on Elijah's cock, carving Elijah into precise pieces, is the rhythmic echo of Orli's orgasm.  
For a few seconds they stay tangled in this knot of limbs and sweat and shock, two dead bodies floating face down in the small shivering afterwaves. Then Orli pulls off Elijah and rolls to one side and up onto his knees, his lips pressed thin together. He closes his eyes and deliberately, deliberately swallows, his throat rippling. He passes his tongue over the dark red flush of his swollen lips and swallows again. Elijah, trapped with a mouthful of what tastes and feels like liquidized raw oysters, sits up, his hand over his mouth. He screws his face up grimly and tries to compel himself to swallow. Orli leans in, pushes Elijah's hand away, and replaces it with his own, the warmth of his palm rough against Elijah's soft mouth.  
"Spit it out if you don't like it," Orli says, laughter wriggling right behind the words.  
Elijah throws Orli a round-eyed look of panic and apology and gratitude, and fairly neatly expels the mouthful into the tactfully half-closed cup of Orli's palm. Orli, without hesitation, swoops his mouth down into his own hand and Elijah almost cries out at the sudden stab of -- something -- astonishment, alarm, arousal -- that pierces upwards from his groin into his belly when he glimpses Orli's tongue swiping through the glittering wetness and that's --  
\-- way more than Elijah can process. Elijah's body is still shaking in the aftershocks and his nerves are turning over white noise and his mind just --  
\-- won't. Elijah lets himself unravel, flopping back on the bed.  
"You know some part of what you just guzzled was my brain, right?" Elijah croaks.  
"Mmm hmm," Orli counters, collapsing next to Elijah.  
"Uh huh," Elijah returns, and this could turn into a whole thing only Orli's frowning in sudden discontent.  
"I'm starved," he announces, sounding indignant. "Let's go eat sea food."  
Elijah rolls his head on the pillow and considers Orli until Orli turns his own head toward Elijah.  
"What?" Orli asks.  
"Man, I really like it when you blow me," Elijah says mildly. "It feels unbelievably fuckin' good, and it shuts you up for a bit."  
"Yeah yeah yack yack, my mother warned me about guys like you but I didn't listen."  
"What did she say ... about guys like me?" Elijah asks, at least faintly worried.  
"I don't know. I just said I didn't listen."


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Orli, semi-sprawled across his corner of the table, responds at once, "ours not to make reply, ours not to reason why, ours but to do and die."

Day 0  
Tuesday will be the first night of shooting at Helm's Deep, so on Monday night John hosts a farewell dinner in honor of the cast and crew who are, as Ian declaims in ringing RSC tones, about to "boldly ride and well, into the jaws of death, into the mouth of hell." Orli, semi-sprawled across his corner of the table, responds at once, "ours not to make reply, ours not to reason why, ours but to do and die." Ian smiles approvingly, as he does whenever Orli betrays his solid English education.  
Day 8  
"Rise an' shine!" Orli sings out, shouldering his way in through the door of the hobbits' makeup trailer, his hands occupied by a triple-sized takeout coffee and a paper bag full of wholemeal muffins. "It's a beautiful morning out there."  
The hobbits sprawl in their seats in limp submission, while the foot-techs prod and pull and poke to remove prosthetic feet and glue residue and occasional bits of skin.  
"It's seven a'clock in th' fuckin' evenin'," Billy hisses, eyes narrowed venomously.  
"So it is," Orli grins. "Surf today was unbloody believeable, beautiful, big motherfuckers but really rideable. Still, time to quit playin' around and get to work. Time to get geared up and kick some Uruk-ass."  
Billy and Dom and Astin all make 'fuck off and die' noises at Orli, but Elijah feels a strange compulsion to excuse himself to his feet-tech and limp (one hobbit foot, one Elijah foot) out as far as the trailer steps after Orli.  
"Hey. Be careful out there man," Elijah says.  
"Don't worry -- and you know what they say about absence making the heart grow fonder," Orli grins, lifting his coffee cup in parting salute.  
And that's such a weird fuckin' thing for Orli to say that Elijah decides not to even think about how weird it is.  
Day 27  
Someone yells 'cut', the sound half torn-apart by the hissing rain and the ringing of swords on shields and the desperate cries of the fighters. There's no grip underfoot, none; Orli can't stop his headlong careen down the slope and goes down hard on both knees. He turns his head and squints past the curtain of long wet hair hanging around his face in time to see a yellow-slickered figure on the wall beckoning them back with both arms raised aloft. They don't have the shot; try again. Orli glances around at the twenty or thirty elven archers hunkering in the mud, rain piddling in steady streams off helmet crests and hair braids and cloak hems.  
"Orlando, get them up!" Viggo shouts. Orli cranks his head in that direction and peers through the backlit darkness; Viggo, sword in one hand, uses the other to haul beetled Uruk'hai onto their knees so they can laboriously struggle upright again.  
Orli nods fiercely, though he doubts Viggo will be able to make out the gesture in the darkness. Any time now they'll start losing the black; if they don't nail this tonight, they're going to be right back in this particular circle of Hell again tomorrow. Orli staggers back up onto his feet, swaying as his boot-heels slide around in the mudslick under him.  
"Come on you fuckers," he yells, and he doesn't even sound like himself anymore, voice reduced to a hoarse bark. "On your feet!"  
The elves are already dragging themselves out of the mud, wiping wet hair off their faces and spitting out mouthfuls of rain and dirt and snot.  
"Come on! We're elves -- we're fuckin' unbreakable," he shouts, turning around and leading them back up the slope, slipping and sliding and putting his hand down into the quagmire to steady  
himself every few strides.  
Day 46  
"What the fuck happened to you?" Elijah laughs in dismay, as Orli shrugs his coat off, exposing the plum-black mottle of bruising streching from his left elbow to up under the edge of his tee-shirt sleeve.  
"Huh? Oh. Fell over an Uruk'hai, very embarrassing. Apparently also the funniest thing Viggo's ever seen."  
"Fuck."  
"Forget it, it looks way worse than it is."  
And maybe Elijah means to protest, but Orli's already taking him by the hips and guiding him back onto the couch. Elijah lets it happen, lets Orli lay him out among the cushions, lets Orli bare him from navel to knees, and Orli's gentle mouth dissect him until Elijah's nothing but want. As Elijah feels his body and bones and brain all arch and stretch towards the snapping edge of completion, he finds himself shifting his grip from Orli's biceps to Orli's shoulders, but can't remember why.  
Day 64  
Initially Pete prides himself on having single-handedly reduced violence on New Zealand television by the simple expedient of hiring all the available stunt actors himself, but by week nine there are rumors that he's beginning to lose his nerve. The two-man medic team that was sufficient to keep the battlefield clear during the first few weeks of filming has gradually grown until there are three teams of three medics on duty every night, a flood-lit chopper pad just a ten minute dirt-road drive outside the quarry pit, and a radio-link to the nearest hospital, since cellphone coverage seems to get even more erratic than usual in moments of real emergency.  
Three extra trailers have been brought on site to accomodate the chiropracter and two physiotherapists who labor to keep the troops on their feet. Orli's wearing his back brace all the time and crunching painkillers like candy. Like everyone else on the shoot he's also bruised from head to toe and wracked by what feels like an unconsummated bout of flu; it never gets bad enough to put him out of the action, but it never improves either.  
Viggo writes Orli poems about artists smearing their own blood on the canvas, about sculptors clawing the stone away with their own ragged fingers. The poems don't help as much as the pillow that Elijah, astutely interpreting Orli's unusual passivity under Elijah's hands, insists on putting under Orli's legs as he lies stretched on Elijah's bed. Orli feels like an old man, but he also feels like an old man whose back-pain eases off some.  
Day 72  
Ten weeks in and daylight sightings of Orli have become rare. When he does show up, blinking behind his rose-tinted shades on even the grayest days, he's either numb with exhaustion or jittering crazily with the after-effects of too much caffeine and adrenaline.  
One evening, when he and Elijah lie down together on Orli's bed, Elijah stretched out on top of Orli, Orli's shaking so badly that Elijah can feel it all through his own body. Orli doesn't seem to notice, even though it's rattling his breath in his chest and turning his laughter to a trembling cough, but it scares the shit out of Elijah.  
"Jesus -- are you alright?" Elijah asks.  
Orli hacks out another cough of amusement and his hands close tight across Elijah's shoulder blades, clutching hard the way he does when he's about to come even though they've barely started.  
"Yeah, yeah, it's all good," Orli mutters in a rush.  
Elijah frowns but remains silent, and after a few more seconds he gives up trying to edit or even understand whatever the fuck is happening and just puts his face down against the chill curve of  
Orli's neck, breathing steadily through his parted lips, trying to exhale as much heat as he can. One hand stays tucked against Orli's side, partially supporting Elijah's weight; the other snags one of Orli's hands, drawing it between their chests. Elijah tries to wrap Orli's long cold fingers in his own smaller, warmer hand.  
"Yeah, it's all good," Elijah murmurs.  
Day 80  
The Uruk'hai beat their weapons on their breast plates and helmets; elves and mortals stamp their feet and punch their fists into the air, all marking the cadence of the chant rising in ragged waves of sound against the hiss of the rain and the rumble of the generators powering the lighting rigs overhead.  
"Are we wet?"  
"Fuck yeah!"  
"Are we cold?"  
"Fuck yeah!"  
"Are we sore?"  
"Fuck yeah!"  
"Are we ready to quit?"  
"Fuck NO!" Orli yells along with everyone else.  
A group of Rohirrim further back on the Deeping wall starts another popular ditty directing abuse at all of the races of Middle Earth. Each verse elicits a chorus response of "fuckin' mortals!", "fuckin' hobbits!" or whatever's appropriate.  
"Fuckin' elves!" They all roar, Orli and Craig shoving each other and laughing in each others' faces without knowing why it's so fucking funny.  
Day 97  
Orli groans, a shuddering animal sound; his fists tighten and open as he forces himself to exhale and tries to just --  
\-- accept the pain.  
"I can't do this," he gasps, but Elijah already knows, is already shifting hastily, taking his weight off Orli and scrambling back on his hands and knees to the foot of the bed.  
"Shit Orli -- "  
"Man I'm sorry but I just -- I can't -- Jesus -- I'm just gonna go, okay?" Orli says, grimacing hard at each individual muscle movement required to haul himself up and off the bed. He has to stifle another groan as his neck grinds through some miserly angle of rotation before locking up tight. "I'm sorry."  
"What the fuck shit is this?" Elijah demands, but his voice is more gentle than not. "We're friends. You think I don't want you here if you're not gonna put out? You're fuckin' insane."  
Orli's wince of discomfort manages to twist itself into a rough approximation of a smile, acknowledging that he's being a complete moron.  
"Okay, don't fuckin' insult me with that shit again," Elijah says with satisfaction. "Come on, we'll watch a movie or drink some beer or do whatever the fuck we used to do before we discovered each others' fuckin' crotches."  
Day 107  
John, who shoots two or at most three nights in a week, has become an ad hoc war correspondent from the battlefield. The Uruk'hai are starting to go down with trench-foot.  
When Elijah gets home, there's a message from Orli, to the effect that they changed his painkiller regime again. His body still hurts like a bastard, but it's phoning it in from fuckin' Venezuela or somewhere, so what the fuck does he care?  
Day 111  
Elijah rolls over and slaps at the alarm-clock, twice, three times, the fourth one hard enough to send the clock skidding right off the night-stand before he figures out the alarm's not what's beeping in the darkness. He burrows through the pillows and bedclothes until he locates his phone.  
"Yeah?" he croaks, then clears his throat and tries again. "Yes?"  
"It's me. I had this weird compulsion to call and tell you it's over."  
"It is?" Elijah says mildly, finally figuring out that it's Orli -- whose voice is completely shot, barely more than a hoarse whisper.  
"I know -- I thought it was gonna go on for fuckin' ever too. If I'd known that was gonna be the last time, I'd've paid more attention. As it is, all I remember is my back being tense and thinking I'd make up for it next time."  
"You would have, I absolutely know you would have."  
"Thanks. Bloody Viggo; he nailed the sword throw first try and that was it. 'A wrap for Aragorn an' Orli'."  
"You guys gonna party?"  
"I doubt it. We finished about a half an hour ago, and we're all jus' sitting here, arse-down in the mud. Smoking bummed cigs and talking about going home and getting our wives pregnant."  
"Good plan."  
"Hey -- the rain's letting up."  
"What are you going to do -- tomorrow?"  
"Sleep for a fuckin' week. Can you come by when you're done for the day?"  
"Sure -- I'll be there around seven in the evening. I'll even bring breakfast."


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Should we stop?" "Do you think we can?" "I don't know. We could try to stop."_

Dedication: to sumbitch, for the excellent edit, also for bearing an uncanny resemblance to Elijah Wood.

When Elijah gets there, Orli's sitting on the back stair, smoking a rare cigarette and considering the sun's flat gold disc hanging low in a sky streaked with pink and purple and jade blue. They smile at each other but don't say anything. Elijah sits down a few steps below Orli, setting down the paper sack of food he's brought. The wind ruffles chill around the collar and cuffs of his jacket; the white noise of the waves and the sharp high cries of the gulls weave a seamlessly repeating pattern of sound. A single star emerges out of the blue overhead, an icy point of brilliance.  
"Sunset," Orli announces.  
Elijah turns his head, eyebrows lifted questioningly.  
"It's sunset," Orli says again. "When I woke up, the clock said six fifty-five, but I didn't know which one."  
Orli flips his cigarette stub away and folds his arms, hunching against the cold. He's wearing only striped pyjama pants and a white tee-shirt worn so thin as to be almost sheer. His tan has faded for want of daylight and the marks under his eyes look like fresh bruises; there's just enough length of hair in the crest of his mohawk to convey a rumpled 'just out of bed' quality.  
"You know you look like shit, right," Elijah smiles.  
Orli grins as if Elijah has just discovered a secret Orli's been longing to share. He bums his way down another couple of steps so that he's directly behind Elijah, his legs extended on either side of Elijah's. Elijah looks down at Orli's bare feet and thinks what obscenely long toes Orli has. Orli leans in, and some part of his face, cheek or cheekbone or temple, comes to rest against the top of Elijah's head. Elijah blinks, and doesn't remember to breath again until Orli unfolds himself into a stand and walks up the stair to the deck.  
They step out of the gathering cold and dusk and into the warmth and light of Orli's house. Orli makes his way to his bedroom, and Elijah follows him without comment --  
\-- then hesitates in the open doorway. The bed is an open tangle of sheets and pillows spilling onto the floor; the bedside lamps are on, the room glowing in their soft yellow light; the curtains are drawn back, exposing a sky already darkening to gray and seeded with stars on this eastern side of the house. The room smells of sleep and skin.  
Elijah crosses the threshold, trying to source his own uncertainty. He's been in this room often, but this time Elijah has a strong sense that there's something, among the strewn clothing and discarded towels and empty beer bottles, that he's not supposed to see. Something ... private.  
Orli feels it too, it seems. He pauses in front of the window, arms wrapped tight around his own torso, declining to look at Elijah. Elijah frowns, perplexed; the only things that he can mark as out of place are the weary cant of Orli's neck and shoulders, the loose cotton gathered low around Orli's hips, Orli's long toes splaying on the wooden floor ... the unmade bed disgorging itself onto the rug.  
"I feel like -- I should get dressed first, or something," Orli says, turning to look at Elijah, and Elijah feels something inside his chest relax at the sight of Orli's irrepressible smile.  
"And make the bed," Elijah answers.  
"It's weird, i'nnit? You've seen me shower an' piss -- "  
"And puke."  
Orli inclines his head, acknowledging that too. "So why do I have a problem now?"  
"That stuff was about us being friends."  
"This stuff is about us being friends too," Orli counters, still smiling though his eyes turn grave.  
"Yeah." And then, with more conviction, "yeah."  
Elijah shrugs his jacket as he moves toward Orli. Orli shifts but doesn't actually retreat. Elijah reaches out, one hand molding itself to the curve of Orli's forearm. The touch is nothing, or would be nothing if only there were someone else here to witness it, but they're alone. Maybe Elijah's hand on Orli's arm conveys friendship and empathy and support ... or maybe it just conveys that Elijah's palm is warm against Orli's still chilled skin, that his fingers are pale even against Orli's faded tan, that the interface between them tingles and tightens with the faint electric buzz of the contact.  
"Okay," Orli whispers, and Elijah nods once, confirming Orli's observation.  
Elijah's hand shifts to the curve at the top of Orli's arm. Orli's breathing is slow, but with an underlying shake. Elijah flexes his fingers against the taut muscle, reassuring them both that his touch is not, at least not immediately, disastrous. Elijah shifts his hand again, pressing gently but firmly on the slow solid swell of Orli's chest. They stare at each other, trying to get a sense of how significant -- how dangerous -- how real -- the line Elijah's crossing is.  
Elijah slides his hand sideways, his eyes flickering as he processes the soft rub of Orli's tee shirt and the changing curvature of Orli's body under his fingertips, and then the small hardened peak of Orli's nipple drawing a line of liquid fire across his palm. Orli's breath jags a little. Elijah brings both hands into play, fisting up Orli's tee shirt and rubbing the folds against Orli's skin. Orli stretches and arches and pushes himself further into the sensation.  
"Take it off," Elijah says abruptly, though Elijah's already pulling the garment up off the hollows and rises of Orli's ribcage and Orli's already ducking his head and angling his elbows and the tee shirt hits the floor the precise second Orli says 'yes'.  
For a second they both stop breathing and just try to wrap their heads around what's happening. Elijah lifts his hands again, almost almost brings his fingertips to Orli's skin, but doesn't quite close the gap.  
Then the downward shake in Elijah's hands and the upward rise of Orli's chest as he breathes solve the problem without further input from either of them, and Elijah has to work hard to stifle the moan pushing into his throat as his fingertips start sending frantic messages to his brain about soft over firm and cool giving way to heat and the peachskin whisper of vellous hair. And his eyes chime in with yeah yeah, and the gradations between ivory white and glowing gold even after almost four months of no sunshine, and the little triangular pock of pink under Orli's collarbone, too small to have made the list of significant damage Orli's sustained recently. Elijah leans closer and feels the warm damp ruffle of his own breath against his fingertips, feels the tiny answering quiver in Orli's skin. Elijah replaces the fingertips of one hand with his open mouth.  
"Oh holy fuckin' shit," Orli breathes fervently.  
Elijah's lips drag warm and soft against skin, his fingers follow every curve and turn of flesh. Orli rolls his head, eyes half-closed, mouth half-open.  
"Jesus Jesus don't," he says softly, but he's pushing into the contact, his whole body curling and flexing around the point of connection.  
"Turn around," Elijah says, quietly but urgently.  
Orli makes a noise that should convey resistance except that he's already obeying, though moving slowly enough for Elijah's mouth and hands to map the nuances of taste and touch from Orli's left bicep to back to spine to the pale cord of scar-tissue between and below his shoulder blades.  
"Oh fuck ... I didn't know," Orli rasps, his head dropping forward heavily as Elijah's hands slide up to the nape of Orli's neck and into the vulnerable hollows below his shaven skull.  
"Neither did I," Elijah whispers.  
Orli turns around again, and Elijah uses his fingers and tongue to trace back from spine to side to shoulder to breast bone, and then downwards. Orli's erection is tenting out the soft cotton of his pyjama pants; Elijah touches it and feels it jerk a little against his fingers. He slides his hand inside the loose waist of Orli's pants and glances up and --  
\-- fuck you don't see that everyday, Orlando Bloom with his irrepressible grin wiped right off his face and his long dark eyes pleading just pleading for you to stop or not to stop --  
\-- Elijah draws the soft cloth down off Orli's hips, down Orli's thighs. The garment drops and pools and Orli steps and pushes the pants aside with one foot and he's naked from the crest of his mohawk to the tips of his prehensile toes.  
"Wow," Elijah says faintly.  
"Don't fuckin' start," Orli murmurs pleadingly, hands half caressing Elijah's narrow torso through the fabric of his tee shirt, half lifting it out of the way, exposing plush white skin.  
Between the two of them, they manage to back up the step and a half separating them from the bed. Elijah eases down onto the side of the mattress and Orli reaches down to him.  
"Shirt," Orli says.  
Elijah nods once, lifting his arms over his head and letting Orli draw the garment off over Elijah's head, folds of pale blue cotton momentarily breaking the connection between their eyes. They shift together; Elijah stretches out between the rumpled coolness of the bedclothes and the warmth of Orli's naked body.  
"Orli ... "  
"I know," Orli murmurs against Elijah's chest, before Elijah has a chance to even shape his question or observation or whatever the fuck it was.  
Orli goes to work on Elijah's belt and jeans while Elijah heels his sneakers off, and then Orli peels jeans and underwear and socks away in a single tangled knot. For a second Elijah just feels painfully exposed. Orli moves over him again and 'naked' stops being about uncovered skin and becomes the way Elijah's hands can roam unchecked down Orli's neck and over Orli's back, the way Elijah's face fits into the hollow below Orli's collarbone, and Orli's knee fits the curve inside Elijah's thigh, and how Elijah's toes glance against Orli's instep.  
Orli's mouth and hands wander lavishly and Elijah has to concentrate on just breathing, just keeping his heart from beating its way out of his chest, and not fucking screaming. Seems like, after someone's blown you, there shouldn't be much else left they can do with their mouth to wreck you quite this badly. Yet every tug of Orli's teeth and rasp of Orli's tongue, from the insides of Elijah's wrists to the outsides of Elijah's thighs, is enough to make Elijah shake and squirm.  
"Fuck, fuck," he gasps.  
"I know," Orli says at once, the words rippling red hot on Elijah's ribcage.  
"God I feel like I'm gonna come through every fuckin' pore of my skin," Elijah gasps, arching up hard against Orli.  
They sort of struggle sort of writhe sort of roll over in each others' grasp, Orli unraveling onto his back while Elijah crawls on top of him.  
"Elijah ... "  
"Your body is fucking beautiful," Elijah whispers fiercely, and the word 'beautiful' hangs in the air because it's got no business being here. It might even hang long enough to grow dangerously sharp edges except that it's already getting covered over with gasps and groans and broken guttural noises of appreciation.  
When Elijah shifts to lie on top of Orli, there's a second of sparkling surprising embarrassment as Elijah's erection, instead of aligning neatly against Orli's between their stomachs, gets trapped deliciously between Orli's upper thighs. Elijah fails to stifle a little gasp of pleasure, his cock twitching at the pleasing convolution of heat and damp, of smooth skin over firm flesh and soft skin over slack balls. Elijah feels his face flush, knows there's no way Orli could have missed his reaction and hastily tries to backtrack.  
"No," Orli says quickly, one broad hand splayed flat and firm against the small of Elijah's back to stop any further retreat. "Come on, just fuckin' go for it man."  
"What??"  
"Where you are now. You're right against my balls. Do it there. Let me fucking feel you come there."  
"Jesus Christ," Elijah growls, because the words alone do terrible, wonderful things to him.  
Elijah bites down hard on his own lip, trying to dig up some control or focus or any damn thing that will stop him from coming right this second. Orli scowls white-hot insistence and holds Elijah's hips tightly, guiding Elijah's first tentative movements.  
"Jesus. Orli," Elijah pants.  
Elijah's not supposed to know this stuff. He's not supposed to know how Orli looks, cheekbones fever-flushed and lips swollen and his shorn skull twisting from side to side on crumpled sheets. He's not supposed to know how Orli's hands clutch and claw. He's so very fucking not meant to know how it feels to work his cock in the narrow, hot, sweat-slick space between Orli's thighs. He's not supposed to know how Orli pushes up to meet him, how their naked bodies lock tight together with hands on shoulders and hips, heels pinning calves, and Orli's cock sliding sweet and hot and smooth between their stomachs.  
"Shit fuck I'm gonna ... "  
"I know," Orli gasps, and --  
\-- forbidden fucking knowledge, Elijah can't know how Orli's close too because his balls are firm against the root of Elijah's cock now instead of silkily yielding, and Orli's cock is making ruthless jabs at Elijah's stomach. Orli lets his legs fall open a fraction more and Elijah already knows that gesture knows its name knows that it's *sex*. Not making out, getting off, messing around, not a thing, not a game. It's sex.  
Orli breathes "come" and Elijah does, crying out in wordless delight, the long slow inversion of his insides made even more ecstatic by the knowledge that his come is spreading and sliding and soaking between Orli's legs and into the sheet under Orli's ass.  
For a second, or even two, there's still a wisp-thin chance that they can get out of this with the universe intact. Elijah's too wasted to think, let alone understand. Orli, however, is thirty seconds away from an orgasm and not in the mood to exercise self-restraint. He slings one long leg around Elijah's hip, his heel pressing into the back of Elijah's thigh and pumps himself quickly against Elijah's stomach. And Elijah presses back as hard as he can.  
"Fuck! -- Lij -- I fuckin' love it," Orli snarls and he's already gone, clawing and twisting and Elijah's heart leaps and plunges and pounds and Orli's cock pulses smugly and Orli's come seeps out through the gap between Orli's hip and Elijah's waist.  
"Oh ... fuckin' hell," Elijah says with great fervor, when they've collapsed off each other and they're lying there in ... well, he's not sure if it's post coital bliss or exhaustion or just stunned disbelief, but it's definitely post-coital something. Because, yep, he's in a naked tangle with Orli and that was very definitely *sex*.  
Elijah struggles into a sitting position, wiping sweat-lank strands of hair from his forehead.  
"Fuckin' hell," he says again, more desperately.  
"I know," Orli pants, sitting up too and flashing Elijah a look of guilty dismay.  
"What the fuck do we do?" Elijah implores.  
"I don't fuckin' know man!"  
"Should we stop?"  
"Do you think we can?"  
"I don't know. We could try to stop."  
"Do you want to?"  
"Fuck no!"  
"We could keep going."  
"Seems kinda fuckin' inevitable now," Elijah says, eyes round with wonder and mouth stretching and curling and finding the exultant laughter he's been looking for.


	8. Chapter 8

Elijah's not sure he's even hearing the question right, but it doesn't matter because no matter _what_ Orli's asking, Elijah's answer is  
"Yes, yes"  
breathed as softly as a sigh.  
Orli grins so hard his nose wrinkles.  
"We need something to use as lube," he says quickly, yanking open the medicine cabinet only to be confronted by shelves that are utterly bare except for a half-used tube of toothpaste, a jumbo bottle of mouthwash, a nail-clippers, and half a dozen pill bottles. Like Elijah, Orli's personal grooming regime consists of being showered and fresh-breathed when he turns up for his make-up call. Everything else, even shaving, is taken care of there.  
"Damnit," Orli says, shutting the cabinet again. "Oh, hey, kitchen."  
"You mean you wanna do it right _now_?" Elijah protests, but Orli's already running downstairs, bare heels pounding dully on the wooden floors, slapping lights on as he goes.  
Elijah catches up with Orli in the kitchen. "You want me to – have sex – with you, right now?"  
"Yeah, why wait?" Orli says, opening cupboards and rummaging around.  
"I just thought -- "  
"Jam," Orli smirks, setting the jar on the edge of the sink before returning to his search.  
"I thought you meant later. Another time."  
"Honey?" Orli says dubiously, putting that jar down next to the first.  
"Like, after we're married or something."  
"Ooh, olive oil. We're rocking now man," Orli says triumphantly, turning to display the bottle to Elijah. Orli's long fingers splayed caressingly around the golden-green bottle and his melting eyes and his smooth smile are like a winsome commercial for sin. "Come on," he grins, backing towards the doorway while wagging the bottle of oil temptingly at Elijah. "You know you want to."  
"No I don't," Elijah says righteously.  
"Well, be careful running around the place like that. You'll put your eye out."  
Orli looks pointedly at Elijah's cock, standing out stiffly from Elijah's body.  
"God damn it," Elijah mutters as Orli breaks and runs for the stairs and Elijah, duty-bound or some damn thing, takes off after him.  
\---  
"Oh … fuck," Orli groans, the edges of his voice slipping and sliding. "That's so fuckin' … easy."  
Orli's a spill of brown limbs on the white sheets, lying on his back with his knees drawn up and Elijah kneeling between his spread thighs.  
"I know," Elijah says breathlessly, flashing Orli a shaky, disbelieving smile. He managed to get a finger inside Orli earlier with no lubrication other than Orli's sweat and some of Elijah's own come. Now the olive oil glistening on Elijah's fingers and in the crease of Orli's ass makes everything liquidly, yieldingly smooth. Elijah draws his hand back, feeling the silky slide and the final pop-spit as Orli's hole expels the tip of Elijah's middle finger and pouts itself tightly closed again. Elijah starts over, putting his fingertip to the puckered skin and – _pressing_ – so gently. The muscle is tense and would be unyielding except for the oil that's turning everything to frictionless smoothness. Orli's body doesn't capitulate, so much as fail to resist sufficiently. Elijah presses further inwards, feeling the brazen grasp of clinging, wringing muscle just waiting for him to falter so it can promptly pop him out again. Elijah applies just the hint of pressure required to maintain his place.  
Elijah's beginning, very dimly, to imagine how this might work. With enough lubrication to make everything elusively slippery, maybe Elijah's cock can slither past Orli's defenses too. Elijah wipes the oily palm of his left hand onto the index finger of his right hand. Without entirely withdrawing his middle finger, he aligns both fingers close together and pushes back in. There's fractionally more resistance exerting itself over the larger area of skin he's presenting, but his two fingers sink in easily enough as far as the second knuckles.  
Orli makes a small doubtful sound.  
"You okay?" Elijah asks.  
"Yeah, keep going," Orli frowns, and huffs out his remaining breath as if gathering himself for some demanding act of physical endurance.  
Tentatively, Elijah moves his fingers back and forth in tiny increments, the relentless squeeze of Orli's internal muscles wringing the blood in Elijah's fingers into his throbbing fingertips.  
"Okay, Lij – Lij, stop," Orli says hastily.  
Elijah freezes.  
"I'm sorry, take it out," Orli says sheepishly. "I gotta – I gotta go to the bathroom."  
"Oh, sure."  
Elijah delicately disengages himself from Orli's body, but Orli doesn't get off the bed.  
"It's that way," Elijah prompts, tipping his chin in the direction of Orli's ensuite bathroom.  
"I know," Orli says distractedly, his attention turned inwards. He frowns, then bites his own lower lip as his cheeks stain faintly pink. "Oh. Okay. You wanna try again?"  
"I thought you needed -- "  
"I don't. It just – felt like I did."  
Elijah takes a few seconds to make sense out of that, but when he does so, his eyes go round with dismay.  
"It makes you feel like you need to take a _crap_?" he says, aghast. "Okay, that's it, we're done here."  
Elijah actually gets as far as scooting back on his knees and wiping his hands off on his hips, before Orli rolls up on his elbow and takes hold of Elijah's right wrist, preventing him from backing away any further.  
"No, come on man, don't bail on me now," Orli says quickly.  
"I just don't -- "  
"Come on Lij. I want to know what it's like and there's no one on earth I trust enough for this except you."  
Elijah considers Orli's coaxing smile dubiously.  
"I'll beg if it helps," Orli says, making puppy eyes.  
"You'll beg me to put my fingers up your ass?" Elijah says archly.  
Orli smirks, and blushes deeply across the bridge of his nose.  
"You're so fuckin' gay," Elijah says in mock disgust, but he's already shifting in closer again.  
Orli snorts derisively. Elijah snags the bottle of oil and reslicks both hands again.  
"Ready?"  
"Go for it."  
Elijah feels a little more confident in the necessary press and push and pause, though he watches Orli's expression carefully, waiting for a reaction. Orli crooks one eyebrow slightly and breathes.  
"Keep going," he says flatly.  
Elijah, still staring at Orli to ensure he doesn't miss a cue, obediently begins to make small push and pull movements. Orli frowns intently, his breathing becoming more erratic. Elijah's uncomfortably aware of his own nudity and his half-flaccid cock and the tendons in his right wrist growing weary. Stealthily, Elijah rotates his right hand palm up. Orli tenses, nostrils flaring and eyes shocked wide.  
"Shit - you okay?" Elijah asks.  
"Keep – going," Orli snaps.  
Elijah bites his own lower lip hard and starts moving his fingers in and out again. Orli's hand is sliding on his own cock, matching Elijah's slow rhythm, and Elijah can't deny that's pretty damn sexy. In a spirit of natural curiosity, Elijah experiments with a little side-to-side wiggle as well as his in-and-out strokes. He tries curling his fingers up and -  
\- Orli gives involuntary voice to a groan of pure lust. "Fuck! That's - "  
"Painful?" Elijah blurts, expecting the worst.  
" – interesting. Feels like ... I need to piss. In a good way."  
"You're way too comfortable with excretion."  
"Yeah ... who knew?" Orli purrs, stretching his arms luxuriously above his head.  
Elijah, frowning dubiously, repeats the motion, realizing there's a distinct textural difference to the front wall of Orli's passage compared to the other sides. Orli takes hold of his own cock again and starts to stroke smoothly.  
"That's really fuckin' interestin' man," he sighs, considering Elijah through slitted eyes.  
Elijah doesn't answer, partly because his heart is hammering in the back of his throat.  
"I'm ready Lij, let's do it," Orli says sternly.  
Elijah reluctantly draws his fingers out of Orli and swallows hard, trying to get his heart back down into his chest.  
"You know you want to," Orli goads, and then, in a sing-song voice, "you _love_ me, you _love_ my ass … you want to _fuck_ my ass."  
Elijah sneezes out a laugh. "Shut up!"  
"You _want_ to," Orli goes on relentlessly, rolling his hips obscenely.  
"Shut the fuck up bitch," Elijah laughs, and just to prove Orli wrong (or something) he grips his own cock just below the head and puts it to the center of the puckered pink bud and pushes. He doesn't expect it to go in, he's only hoping the gesture might sober Orli a little, but there's a tactile pop and slide and stop, and the head of Elijah's erection is firmly locked inside Orli's hole.  
"Oh," Orli says; his tone is almost entirely surprise, but there's a sort of dismayed acceptance too.  
Elijah's momentarily speechless, and incapable of tearing his gaze off the stunning, surreal junction between their bodies.  
"That's gotta fuckin' hurt man," Elijah pleads, getting control of his voice though he's still blind to everything except the scorchingly obscene way his body and Orli's are locked together. The head of Elijah's cock is being squeezed so tightly that he's afraid his come is going to be extruded out of him without any further movement on his part. Orli shakes his head, his hand still sliding on his cock.  
"No – it doesn't hurt," he grinds. "It feels kinda weird but – fuck – it makes wanking feel really _fuckin'_ good." He lifts his head again, nailing Elijah with a glittering black gaze. "Really fuckin' _dirty_ , y'know?"  
"Yeah," Elijah breathes shakily. "It looks fuckin' hot too – fuckin' _obscene_."  
Orli's head falls back and his eyes drop closed as he gives himself over to the sensations of one hand on his cock and the other around his balls, and the head of Elijah's cock in his ass.  
"Just like that, just there," he murmurs.  
Elijah's got some problems. Firstly, every time he glances at Orli's fingers tugging at the dark-flushed skin of Orli's cock, he thinks he's gonna come really soon. Every time he looks at his own cock in Orli's asshole, he knows he's gonna come really soon. And, most urgently, the muscles of his arms and shoulders are starting to scream in protest over the awkward way Elijah's poised above Orli. Something's got to give. If Elijah could just drag his gaze somewhere more innocuous, things might be okay, but Elijah's staring straight down so he sees – up close and personal – Orli's balls _twitch_ with his impending orgasm and the pang of sheer lust that spears through Elijah loosens the lock on his elbows and the delicate bracing of his hips and he hitches down and his cock slips a little - a little more - again - deeper -  
"Shit! Shit!" Elijah hisses, panic-stricken, but he's afraid to make any sharp movement backwards in case that hurts Orli, though Orli's already writhing in some kind of extremis –  
\- "fuck fuck no oh fuck fuck" –  
and squeezing his own cock hard and Elijah can feel everything inside Orli turning implacably rigid, trembling on an edge – and Elijah is still slip slip slipping through blood red fire and flame soft heat and he feels like his fucking skin is being seared off and all that's left is sensation so far beyond pleasure that he can't even name it. He can only let it flay him until he's nothing but come jetting sharp and sparkling out of his cock into Orli's body.  
Orli feels the insect wing brush and trickle of come inside him, and it takes him a second to connect the sensation with the way Elijah's cock pulses in his ass, but when he figures it out, oh, when he figures it out – his orgasm is long and slow and very deliberate and he half expels Elijah's cock as well as his own come.  
Elijah, sobbing for breath, withdraws the rest of the way –  
\- "oh," Orli gasps helplessly –  
\- and unfolds into a sprawl beside Orli, who winces as he stretches his legs out flat on the mattress again.  
"That," Orli pants, "is un-fucking-believable. I totally get why gay guys do it. Fuck, if I was gay, I'd do it all the fuckin' time."  
Elijah's still trying to figure out which way around he needs to turn that idea before he can examine it, when Orli breaks into a sudden gust of laughter.  
"What's so funny?" Elijah grins.  
"It was in my _arse_ ," Orli chokes between laughs. "I mean, it was _in_ my _arse_ man."  
Elijah starts laughing too.  
"You're one kinky motherfucker alright," he manages.  
Orli curls up and kicks like he's being tickled.  
"Hey, I'm not the one sticking my dick up some guy's _arse_ ," he gasps hilariously.  
Abruptly he stops, wide-eyed, concentrating on something --  
"Yikes."  
"What's wrong?" Elijah demands, stricken.  
"Eeww."  
Orli shifts his weight to one hip, peers over his side at the sheet under him.  
"I think your spunk just found its way out."  
"Eeww."  
"Move over, I'm not sleeping on the wet patch."  
"Neither am I."  
"It's your spunk."  
"It was your ass."  
Orli grizzles, climbs over Elijah with a deliberate excess of elbows and knees and heels, and lets himself unravel half on and half beside Elijah on the far side of the bed.  
"I'm beat. Sleep now," Orli announces, and Elijah knows he'd better drag himself off the bed and stumble at least as far as the couch. He'll go any second now.  
Orli's leg is still thrown over Elijah's shins, and disentangling himself seems an insurmountable challenge to Elijah, especially when he's already delirious with exhaustion. Maybe if he just rests his eyes for a minute, things will become clearer.  
Orli's breathing settles into a slow tidal hush, and Elijah's awareness sort of fades in and out on the flow of air. Yeah, any second now …


	9. Chapter 9

Just the way you do it to me man," Orli murmurs over the unraveled mess of naked post-orgasmic Elijah beneath him.  
Elijah nods solemnly, eyes round and dark and solidly locked on Orli's black gaze as Orli lifts his hips and wraps his fingers around his own erection, everything slick with Elijah's come. Another shift of weight and the head of Orli's cock presses into the damply warm and clingingly soft skin between Elijah's closed thighs.  
Elijah shudders, the blunt tips of his fingers digging into Orli's shoulders. Orli presses down and Elijah feels the stick and yield as Orli's cock makes unsteady progress into the confined passage between Elijah's thighs. Orli makes a jagged little sound and Elijah has time to wonder when they each accepted the power to break the other so completely, and then they're moving and Elijah doesn't understand anything that doesn't speak to him through his skin.  
Afterwards, they untangle themselves from each other, clean up most of the mess, pull on jeans and sweaters, and retire to the porch to drink beer and smoke.  
"You ever think – you might wanna go further? Go – all the way?" Orli asks speculatively, watching a pair of gulls dragging food-wrappers out of the trashcan next to where the jeep's parked.  
"Anal sex," Elijah says very steadily, because if Orli's got the balls to raise the subject, Elijah's got the balls to name it.  
Orli waits for the answer to his question. Elijah shakes his head.  
"I don't think so. That's for guys who do this stuff for real," he shrugs, glancing around them as if the used bed inside and the clinging smell of semen and the livid red bite-mark on Orli's collarbone all somehow confirm the non-realness of what they do.  
Orli considers this for a moment, then nods in agreement.  
"Yeah. Seems a bit fuckin' weird too. We're good as we are."  
\---  
"Besides," Elijah says, leaning in and allowing the general level of noise at the table to cover his conversation with Orli, "We've no fuckin' idea what we're doing."  
"When we started this, we hardly knew how to open a fly from the wrong side," Orli shrugs.  
"Yeah but the risk of injury was pretty fuckin' minimal," Elijah says dryly.  
"You're not as fragile as you look."  
"Me???" Elijah cries in outrage. "How the fuck did it get to be me?!"  
The conversation everywhere else dies instantly, and everyone's staring in their direction. Elijah can feel his ears burning, and Orli's sneaking sly glances of guilty amusement at him. The silence stretches on for what feels like an eternity but is probably only a few seconds, until Billy laughs raucously at something happening at his end of the table, and everyone else starts talking again.  
\---  
"Why me?" Elijah insists as he and Orli climb into the backseat of the cab.  
"I dunno – you're smaller than me. It makes sense," Orli answers at random, sliding along the seat so Elijah can stretch out and lean against him.  
"Nuh-uh," Elijah says emphatically. "I'm not the girl in this couple."  
"We're a couple?"  
"Stop avoiding the point."  
"Okay, nobody's the girl. Happy?"  
"Nuh uh. Suck me, bitch," Elijah growls.  
Orli grins and dives into Elijah's lap with such alacrity that Elijah squeaks with surprise.  
\---  
"Oh God. Do you wanna … ?" Orli groans as Elijah climbs onto his lap, straddling Orli's thighs and beginning to lick broad stripes from beneath Orli's jaw, down the side of Orli's throat and into the open collar of Orli's shirt.  
"Yeah, I do want to," Elijah smirks against Orli's collarbone, hands already smoothing coarse white cotton away from warm skin.  
"Oh good," Orli sighs, slouching further down among the bed pillows and spreading his long fingers across Elijah's denim-clad ass, pulling him in closer.  
Elijah gives in to the guiding pressure of Orli's hands, rising up onto his knees and tip-tilting his pelvis to let Orli nuzzle and bite softly at his erection through the layers of his clothing.  
"Can I suck you?" Orli murmurs.  
"If you insist," Elijah tries to tease, though his tone is breathily eager as Orli's hands shift from Elijah's behind to between his spread thighs, stroking and pulling and clawing gently against the worn-thin denim of Elijah's jeans.  
Orli's fingers tackle Elijah's belt and fly with practiced ease; Elijah shivers at every glancing, caressing touch. Orli slides the soft fabric down onto Elijah's hips and carefully hooks Elijah's erection free from Elijah's underwear. Elijah frowns, intent and impatient, as Orli wraps one hand around Elijah's cock and cups Elijah's bare ass with the other and guides Elijah so slowly toward his parted lips.  
Orli's mouth is hot enough to snap Elijah's nerves to watchful attention, and so liquidly soft that the sensation weakens the tendons behind Elijah's knees and the column of his spine, and he arches back and Orli shifts both hands to the small of Elijah's back to support him. Elijah strips his tee shirt off over his head and discards the garment over the side of the bed. Orli's mouth pulls softly, drawing sharp whispers of red pleasure into focus out of the general blur of arousal, and slides sweetly smooth on Elijah's cock.  
Elijah moans, a quavering anxious little sound, and shifts his hands to the wall behind the bed for better support. Elijah tries to remember how this wasn't always his, but that seems impossible. Orli knows this so well, knows exactly how to pluck sharp little fragments of sensation out of the general bliss, knows how to collect them together and make something … coalesce … something … deep down … Elijah's hips flex slowly, his hands tightening into fists, and his eyes squeezing shut, giving in to the gathering twisting tightening burn low down in his guts.  
Elijah's sensitized skin begins to prickle against the cool air, and he's keenly aware of every particle of his body not in contact with Orli. Sometimes Elijah likes this sense of hanging freely in the void, yet being pinned in one position by the pressure of Orli's mouth or hands. Right now, though, the void's cold and impersonal, and Elijah wants to dig himself down into Orli's heat.  
"Not like this," Elijah pants, trying ineffectually to draw back from Orli's mouth. "Come on, stop!"  
Orli protests silently but bitterly, fingers tightening on Elijah's ass and chin digging deeper into the muscle of Elijah's groin.  
"No," Elijah insists, and Orli reluctantly lets go, lets Elijah's cock slide wetly free.  
Orli's head drops back onto the pillow and he glares resentfully up at Elijah.  
"I wanna put it between your legs," Elijah says hastily, and Orli's annoyance promptly turns to grinning anticipation.  
Orli scrabbles his own shirt off while Elijah finishes untangling himself from his jeans. They both go to work on Orli's cargo pants, Orli trying to undo his fly buttons while Elijah's already impatiently tugging down on the waistband.  
"Wait a – gimme a fuckin' second here," Orli laughs, managing to maneuver one hip free of the half-opened garment.  
"I can't. Must. Do it. Now," Elijah grins, finally wrenching the pants free and flinging them over his shoulder.  
Orli scrambles to shuck his underwear before Elijah gets a chance to do it for him. Elijah wriggles and writhes and presses Orli's legs together with both hands while his cock makes blind little digs at the insides of Orli's thighs.  
"Jesus! Just go – easy," Orli sputters with laughter.  
"Come on baby, don't fight me, you know you like it," Elijah sniggers.  
"Some fuckin' boyfriend you are," Orli complains, finally getting them settled hip to hip; Elijah's cock pushes its way down between the blood-hot sweat-soft skin of Orli's thighs.  
The skitter of pleasure along Elijah's nerves makes something unexpected jump in the pit of his stomach – the sudden sobering sense of privilege that has always informed the act of penetration for him. He makes a muffled little sound of appreciation and buries his face against Orli's throat, mouthing and licking the thin skin directly under his lips.  
One of Orli's hands curves tenderly around the back of Elijah's head, his other arm coming around Elijah's shoulders and back, pulling him in as if gravity and weight aren't enough to maximize the contact between their bodies. Orli hooks one bare foot out over the back of Elijah's ankle, pinning it to the bed. Elijah tries to relax into Orli's embrace, even as his muscles and nerves and bones lock up tight into their pre-orgasmic rigor.  
Something, for damn sure, is different now. For the first time in his entire life, Elijah doesn't struggle towards his orgasm with greedy haste; his hips keep the same swift but steady tempo, and his attention is fixed on the hot beating tide of his breath against Orli's throat, and he just waits – waits – waits – knowing with absolute certainty that it's going happen even if he doesn't grab at it. The heat in his guts thickens and intensifies; Elijah has time to whisper 'yes' before he's caught and rolled and he's plunging down through the bright glittery pounding surface to where it's darker and quieter and it looks still but the slow swell pushes and pulls and presses with barely restrained power.  
Washed ashore on Orli's shoulder, with Orli's mouth pressing soft kisses and soothing words into Elijah's hair, Elijah blinks, wonders what the fuck is happening to him … to them.  
"You," he says with sudden urgency, pushing up onto his elbows as Orli reluctantly releases him.  
"Don't you wanna – afterglow or something for a second?" Orli smirks.  
"No, I don't, I wanna feel you come," Elijah says in a rush, already sliding down the length of Orli's body, both hands spreading Orli's legs apart.  
"Oh. Fair enough," Orli grins.  
Elijah folds down onto his knees and elbows between Orli's legs and takes Orli's cock into his mouth and starts sliding up and down on it with deliberate, thorough, slowness. Orli groans, his hips rolling a little, trying to coax an increase in speed or, at least, pressure from Elijah. Elijah obliges, and Orli's appreciation comes out as a low growl.  
Elijah's hands skim over Orli's skin, from hipbones to ribcage to hardened nipples, then down again, down over the shallow curves of Orli's waist and the lean swell of his flanks.  
Elijah drives his mouth down further, and the tip of Orli's cock slides easily over the roof of Elijah's mouth and onto his soft palate and on into the back of his throat. Elijah's hands curl and circle and caress Orli's hips and thighs and ass, fingers digging in where the flesh is softest, trying to assuage by proxy the itch in Elijah's teeth that can really only be soothed by the yield and resist of biting Orli's skin.  
"Oh – fuck. Sweet – fuck," Orli breathes reverently, writhing slowly from side to side, clawing at the pillows and sheets and his own body in an effort to ride out the jagged waves of sensation wracking him.  
Elijah's fingers trace the valley between the cheeks of Orli's ass, slick with Elijah's come, and Orli heaves upwards and it could be he's trying to escape Elijah's touch or maybe just give Elijah a little more space. Elijah doesn't know, and in this instant he can't stand that there's anything of Orli he doesn't know. His fingers are already delving into heat and his right thumb finds the tight puckered convolution of fine skin over relentless muscle, except that Orli shifts and Elijah presses and something gives way and –  
It isn't weird or gross or anything. Orli is soft, and warm, but insanely tight. Elijah pushes his thumb in as far as the knuckle, and his pulse starts to pound under his fingernail from the pressure.  
"Oh no way, you're not fuckin' serious," Orli gasps, and he shifts deliberately, hooking one leg over Elijah's shoulder.  
Elijah swallows Orli's cock to the root and slides his thumb out of Orli's ass until the ring of muscle pouts almost closed around the very tip. He draws back his mouth until his lips barely encircle the tight smooth head and pushes his thumb back in until the web of skin between thumb and palm is pressed tight against into the crease of Orli's ass.  
"Jesus don't – fucking – stop," Orli grinds, and if his intonation of the words is a little cryptic, the way his long body arches and his cock jerks in Elijah's mouth and his ass pulses around Elijah's thumb clear any confusion up right away.  
Elijah doesn't want to stop. Hell, Elijah's not sure he can stop. He wants to do this, do more, do every damn thing he can think of to crawl inside Orli's skin and along Orli's nerves. The slide of his thumb in and out turns periodically to a locked tight press and pull when Orli tenses up, then Orli relaxes again and Elijah's free to move again.  
Orli's spine whiplashes again, a motion beyond writhing, closer to convulsing, trying to claw his way further into Elijah and yet struggling to escape the overload of sensation.  
"I can't," he begs, tears sliding out of the corners of his eyes and making shining trails down his cheekbones into the folds of the pillow beneath his head. "I can't fuckin' come like this, it's too much."  
Elijah, regretfully, eases his thumb back slowly.  
"No," Orli gasps. "Don't take that away."  
Something low and dark and dirty inside Elijah's guts rolls over lazily. Languorously, Elijah pushes his thumb back in again, and Orli makes a small sound of anxious delight. Elijah shifts his body weight, letting Orli's cock slide free from his mouth, sitting up onto his knees, curling his body above Orli's, one knee down between Orli's spread legs. Elijah's thigh bumps solidly into the back of his right hand. Orli inhales sharply. Elijah wraps his left hand around Orli's spit-slick cock and squeezes just a little. The air in Orli's lungs comes out hard.  
Elijah picks up the pace, becoming more cavalier about the alternation between the slick strokes when Orli's body accepts him and the hesitant tug when Orli resists. Orli's features twist into a grimace of ecstasy and amazement and occasional stabbing discomfort.  
"Oh fuck oh God oh help me," he sobs, one bare foot struggling for purchase against the bed sheets.  
Orli rolls his shoulders up off the bed, his weight braced on one elbow. The fingers of his free hand twist into Elijah's hair, but it's nothing like the gentle guide and caress Elijah receives while he's sucking Orli off. Orli grips tight and hangs on in sheer desperation. Elijah doesn't care – maybe Orli's exhaling endorphins at such a rate that Elijah can't feel pain either.  
Orli arches hard, then stills, holding himself stretched taut between the bed and Elijah's hands.  
"If you keep doing what you're doing," he announces with stunned conviction, "you're gonna make me come."  
That's the smallest fuckin' 'if' in the history of the world, Elijah thinks. He keeps doing what he's doing, pushing his thigh between Orli's legs and pushing his thumb into Orli's ass. Orli makes fragmentary guttural noises, hardly breathing, hands clawing and clutching at Elijah's hair.  
Elijah feels it, feels the sudden silence and the red hot hum expanding like a wave and the clear pulse pulse pound around his thumb, like the source for all the half-whispered orgasms Elijah's felt beat minutely against his hands and stomach and tongue. Orli screams, a horrified shattered exultant sound that makes Elijah groan aloud as his own body flexes in sympathetic pleasure. Elijah's skin shimmers under the hot-cool spatter of Orli's come on Elijah's thigh and hip. Elijah feels Orli falling away, his body unraveling into completion and exhaustion and down, down into limp relaxation, then even further than that, Orli's limbs spilling every which way and his body settling like still water. Elijah finally draws his thumb slowly out of Orli's body. Orli doesn't flinch, doesn't make a sound, doesn't acknowledge the departure at all.  
"Hey. Are you asleep?" Elijah demands indignantly, shifting his weight to look directly into Orli's face. Orli's eyes are closed. Orli's breathing is slow and shallow, which doesn't make sense because Elijah's lungs are still grabbing for air and his heart's still pounding.  
"Orli?" Elijah prompts again, surprise already sliding into alarm.  
Orli's eyelids aren't even flickering. Elijah glances down the length of Orli's body, confirming that he's absolutely motionless.  
"Fuck. Come on Orli, come back here," Elijah urges desperately, wiping his palm over Orli's temples as if there's hair there to smooth back.  
Orli exhales a little more firmly, and his eyelids begin to flicker. His mouth curls slowly into a slight smile.  
"Orli?" Elijah says again, less panicked but still shaken.  
"Mmm," Orli answers softly, his eyes opening at last, his smile widening, and one hand floating lazily upwards to trail against Elijah's shoulder.  
"The fuck man? You scared the fuck outta me," Elijah protests, though he's grinning too and there's laughter vibrating at the back of his throat.  
"Did I?" Orli husks. "Sorry – I think I kinda stepped out for a minute there."  
"The fuck! This never happened before."  
"It happened me a couple of times when I was younger," Orli says, struggling up onto his elbows.  
"Petite mort," Elijah says reverently.  
"Don't get weird on me," Orli pleads hopefully.  
Elijah shakes his head, nods, shrugs.  
"I gotta – piss," Orli announces, dragging himself laboriously to the edge of the mattress. "Or something – get my head facing the right fuckin' way at least."  
He levers himself onto his feet, sways dangerously, recollects his balance and walks unsteadily into the adjoining bathroom. Elijah lies down on his side and gathers the pillow Orli's just abandoned into his arms. Abruptly, Elijah unfolds himself from the bed and pads into the bathroom after Orli. Orli's standing at the sink, staring at himself in the mirror.  
"I don't feel about anyone else the way I feel about you," Elijah says, laying the words out carefully like he's dealing cards. "Like, if my life was on fire, you'd be the first thing I'd want to save."  
"I know. I feel the same about you," Orli answers, turning his head to stare at Elijah instead.  
Elijah makes some tiny movement of his lips and eyes that conveys acceptance and resignation. Orli steps away from the mirror, coming close enough for Elijah to feel the heat of Orli's naked body ghosting on his own bare skin.  
"I wanna do it," Orli whispers, mouth curling wickedly. "I wanna try to let you fuck me."


	10. Chapter 10

Elijah wakes slowly, scraps of awareness coming in and going out of focus, between breaths warm and soft as velvet.  
He feels a feather-light ruffle of heated air against his forehead and shifts fractionally on the pillow, and his hairline brushes Orli's lips, and then Elijah fades again.  
They're lying face-to-face, bodies pressed tightly together, as if they've been trying to crawl into each other's skin. One of Orli's arms is wound around Elijah's neck and shoulder, the other across his waist. Elijah has one hand folded against Orli's chest and the other draped around the nape of his neck.  
Fade.  
Something red and heavy and faintly pulsing has taken up residence right under the pit of Elijah's stomach. He shifts his hips slightly, and his sleep-dulled nerves melt and fry from the exquisitely distinct sensation of his cock – rock hard and already slick with precum – slipping along the front of Orli's thigh.  
Fade.  
Elijah opens his eyes, blinking in the dazzling light of the still burning bedside lamp. He can tell from the feel of his contacts – sticky, but not actually dry – that he's only slept for a couple of hours. The rounded ridge of Orli's collarbone slants across Elijah's field of vision. Elijah places his parted lips on the crest of the bone and sucks gently. Orli, from the depths of sleep, makes a small sound that might be appreciation or annoyance or a stifled hiccup.  
Elijah's hand trails down Orli's back, savoring the softness of skin flushed and warm from sleep. Something high up under Elijah's ribcage is fluttering with delight. Elijah's grown expert at the glances and half-finished sentences they use to communicate their need to be alone together; he's grown even more accomplished at waiting out the hours or even days until they _are_ alone. Now he's waking with Orli already in his arms, naked and warm and (judging by the glancing contact between their groins as Elijah squirms stealthily) more than half-hard.  
Elijah bends his head and licks along the hollow beneath Orli's collarbone; the smooth current of Orli's breath ripples momentarily, and settles again. Elijah's hand wanders lower, into the hard concave curve at the small of Orli's back, and down onto the softer convex curve of Orli's behind. Elijah wriggles downwards a little, trailing kisses on the swell of Orli's chest as he goes.  
Elijah swipes the tip of his tongue once across Orli's dark nipple and then takes the peaked flesh into his mouth, sucking deeply and gently. Orli's nostrils flare as he drags in a deep breath. His long body flexes slowly, and he exhales through parted lips. His fingers tighten on Elijah's shoulder and side.  
Elijah drops one hand into Orli's lap, fingers petting velvet-soft skin over rigid flesh.  
"Lij," Orli mumbles, his voice thick and his eyes still closed.  
Elijah grins to himself: at least Orli remembers with whom he fell asleep. Elijah feels a jab of proprietary pleasure, and he rakes his stubby fingernails across Orli's ass. Orli, his eyes still shut, smiles.  
"Orli. Can I - "  
"Yeah."  
"Turn over."  
Orli lets himself spill bonelessly onto his back, then over onto his side, and half-way over again so that he's sprawled partially on his stomach, his back to Elijah, and his uppermost leg drawn up to expose the crease of his ass. Elijah crawls half over him to retrieve the bottle of olive oil from the bedside table. As he pulls back, Elijah glances down and sees that Orli's still half-submerged in sleep.  
Elijah spills the oil out into his hand, spreads it on his cock and thumbs a little smear right around the tightly-closed pucker of Orli's ass. Orli stirs a little, humming a little in appreciation of the warmth and silky smoothness of Elijah's touch. Elijah places his index finger at the opening, presses and hooks and pushes steadily; the muscle yields and Orli writhes languidly and sighs out his breath. Elijah shifts his pelvis, tucking in close behind Orli. With his free hand he grips his cock and puts the head right at the place where his finger fits into Orli's body. He pushes forwards with his hips and draws his finger back at the same time, and there's a flawless slipping sliding exchange as Orli's body fails to recover from the first intrusion in time to protest the second.  
Talk about a learning curve. Orli and Elijah may not have had a chance to process their first experience, but their bodies have clearly been thinking things over carefully. Last time, the interface between Elijah and Orli was staccato, a repeated slip-and-stop. This time, Elijah pushes slowly and steadily, and Orli's body yields, driving a ragged guttural groan out of Orli's mouth.  
"Okay?" Elijah breathes, but he already knows the answer, sees it in the blood flush creeping over Orli's cheekbone, feels it in the way Orli's body heaves slowly under him, hears it in Orli's hissed  
"yesss,"  
and Elijah lets himself press push _grind_ as far as he can reach. Orli claws at the pillow under his face and alternately arches back against Elijah and curls away from him.  
Elijah pulls back with the same careful control he used to push in. Orli's body seems more reluctant to let him go than it did to accept him. Orli makes a muffled broken noise into the pillow. Elijah pauses when he feels the resistance of Orli's hole around the ridge between the head and shaft of Elijah's cock. Pauses, then pushes.  
"Oh God, Orli, oh fuck," Elijah whispers reverently, salt tears gathering at the corners of his eyes from the sheer intensity of the pleasure, as if one set of emotional responses (gasping and grinning and not fucking believing this is happening) aren't enough to relieve the pressure inside his chest. "I didn't – this isn't - _fuck_ , I didn't even know it could feel like this … "  
It's hotter and dirtier and better than anything Elijah's ever even imagined. He moves as slowly as he can, but that only seems to intensify the pleasure wracking his body.  
Orli reaches back with one hand, and Elijah doesn't need him to even ask, he just wipes his oil-wet fingers over Orli's palm, letting Orli take that slickness and spread it on his own cock and let his fingers just … slide …  
Orli shivers out a harsh cry, squeezing his eyes tight shut. Elijah hitches a little against Orli's hip, which adds a deeper more obscene angle to Elijah's carefully controlled thrusts. Elijah starts making frantic deals with himself: he won't come until he's counted fifty thrusts. Make it thirty-five. Okay, he'll sell his immortal fuckin' soul if he can just last long enough for Orli to come while Elijah's still hard inside him, still fucking him. Elijah stretches out his feet, trying to quash the white-fire tickle of the nerves in his arches.  
"Jesus Orli," Elijah growls against the curve of Orli's shoulder. "I'd fuckin' crawl on broken glass to get to this."  
"You an' me kiddo," Orli laughs breathlessly. "You an' me all the fuckin' – oh shit shit _shit_ \- Lij? Lijah?"  
"Just fuckin' let it go."  
Orli's shaking and writhing and trying to curl up, hacking broken panic-stricken gasps of pleasure into his pillow. Elijah's control falls apart right at the moment when Orli's body decides that it wants everything it can get. Elijah thrusts in hard and swift and smooth and Orli shoves back against the stroke and Elijah's vision literally spangles red at the sensation. There's a few eternal seconds – maybe even a minute – while they thrust and shove and try and fail for a sustainable rhythm but it doesn't matter because any _one_ of these strokes would be enough on its own, let alone stringing them together …  
Orli throws his head back, his spine arching bow-like and his left hand fisting in the sheet and his long toes curling tightly, and just _howls_ like an aggrieved animal. Elijah gets a quick glimpse of silvery white come splattering from between the fingers of Orli's right hand, which is pretty erotic, but does not begin to compare to Orli's ass pulsing and pressing around Elijah's cock. Elijah's entire nervous system screeches to a halt, mesmerized by the sensation of a ghost orgasm – it's like Elijah's coming, except that he's not. And then he does, and it's like being hit broadside with a plank – there's an instant where Elijah worries if you can actually die from coming too hard for too long.  
After a while, they both drag themselves back up onto the pillows, almost weeping for want of breath.  
"Jesus fuckin' Christ," Elijah manages weakly.  
"I'm never fuckin' goin' back," Orli pants.  
"To women?" Elijah prompts.  
Orli nods, incapable of getting enough breath back to speak with.  
"Oh fuck no," Elijah agrees. "In fact, I don't even wanna fuck anyone who isn't you."  
Orli gasps out a grin.  
"Deal."  
There's another minute or two while they just lie there and wrestle with the whole oxygen problem. Finally, Orli turns his head to consider Elijah thoughtfully. Elijah returns his gaze, ready to take this conversation anywhere it needs to go.  
"Elijah. I know this wasn't meant -- "  
Orli's cut off abruptly by the trill of the phone on the bedside table. Orli makes an apologetic twitch of the mouth at Elijah and answers it.  
"Hello? … Viggo? … Yeah, we're awake – I mean, I'm awake … yeah, see you then."  
Elijah makes a quizzical eyebrow at Orli once Orli's hung up.  
"Viggo, reminding me we have an early call this morning," Orli supplies.  
"Shit. Then it's time for me to haul ass too," Elijah sighs, rolling away from Orli and off the side of the bed.  
\---  
They spend the day shooting in different places – Elijah's only grateful they're not traipsing off to two different ends of the islands for a month or something. After they finish for the day, a large group of cast and crew meet up in a favorite restaurant to celebrate collective birthdays during the month. Elijah, Sean, Andy, and the others who spent the day in the studio arrive together and take up residence at one end of a long bench table. Half an hour later, the on-location groups turn up and fill the other end of the table. Elijah and Orli end up seated too far apart to do more than nod and hitch eyebrows at each other in greeting.  
Dinner progresses slowly, amid much laughter and loud conversation. Orli's end of the table is drinking flaming coffee liqueurs; Orli's getting wired and hammered all at the same time. He and Dom engage in some battle of wits that involves licking Viggo's ears; Viggo's unamused, but everyone else thinks it's the most hilarious thing they've ever seen.  
Elijah passes behind Orli's chair on his way to the men's room. On the return trip along the winding hallway leading back into the restaurant's main dining room, he gets ambushed by Orli, who's skulking in an alcove housing the two public phones.  
"Get in here man," Orli sniggers, glancing up and down the hallway as he grabs Elijah by the shirt and yanks him almost off his feet.  
They collide, Elijah's shoulder digging into the center of Orli's chest and driving Orli's breath out in a short huff. They manage to regain their balance, though Orli doesn't relinguish his grip on Elijah's clothing.  
"There's something I've gotta ask you," Orli says in a quick stage whisper. "And … maybe I shouldn't lay this shit on you, but … I just … "  
Elijah's eyebrows curve upwards in tolerant amusement. He feels a great quietness settling inside his chest. Even Orli's voice, hurried and hoarse, falls away, leaving only the motion of Orli's lips and the ruffle of Orli's Zambucca-scented breath. Elijah can hear the rush of air streaming in and out of his own nostrils, and the quick thud of his heart in his chest, and the molecules of air dancing giddily between him and Orli.  
" … I know this wasn't supposed to happen and I should feel bad over it man, but … "  
Elijah, with magisterial calm, lifts one hand and winds it around Orli's neck and pulls Orli down, while lifting his own face up and parting his lips. Orli falls silent, and lets himself be drawn in closer. Elijah's breathing stops, one last exhalation trembling on his lips even as he feels the tiny stir of the air caused by Orli's own held breath. Orli blinks, slowly, and the silence is so profound Elijah's sure he can hear the rasp of Orli's stiff dark lashes through the air. Elijah pulls Orli across the last two inches of the abyss between them, and their lips touch, brush, stop.  
Elijah pushes up impatiently, biting into Orli's mouth, taking his first taste of the soft wet heat of Orli's lips and tongue. The combination of touch and taste and smell make Elijah's stomach twitch and his groin pull greedily at the blood in his veins. Orli pushes his fingers into Elijah's hair and his tongue into Elijah's mouth, tilting Elijah's face this way and that to accommodate his thorough exploration. Elijah feels all the strength drain out of his knees and relocate to his cock. He clutches at Orli, partly for support and partly for the pleasure of digging his fingertips hard into the dense curves of Orli's arms and shoulders.  
Orli reluctantly pulls back, brows furrowed anxiously even as he licks across his own flushed red lips.  
"Lij, this isn't just about sex between us any more, is it?"  
Elijah grins tenderly up at him, and cradles Orli's jaw in one hand.  
"You moron," he murmurs, drawing Orli down again. "Get a fuckin' clue – it never really was."


	11. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning: schmoopy, very very schmoopy.
> 
> Takes up exactly where Chapter 10 left off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For zoniduck, who first suggested an eleventh chapter to the series, and faeriebambi, who did the pr0n for iPod challenge and thereby put a deadline on the notion.

  
They tip together again, Orli leaning down and Elijah stretching up. There's a fragile brush of lips across lips. For a long moment they stay just like this, feeling their hearts thudding and their breaths wavering while they wait for the world to resume. It's not even a kiss now, just a shared smile.  
Elijah's toes start to ache inside his boots. He eases back down onto his heels and the connection between them breaks.  
"We should go back," he says.  
"Yeah."  
Elijah leads the way back to the sprawling table at the back of the dining room. They're acting casual, if Orli reaching to touch the back of Elijah's hair is casual, if Elijah's eyes snapping and sparkling and his cheeks flushing pink are casual.  
They go to their separate places, ducking their heads and answering at random when their neighbors talk to them. But, inevitable as gravity, once they look up their shared gazes fall back together, their eyes meeting across the table.  
Dinner drags on a little longer, with Orli pushing his silverware around on the tablecloth and Elijah chewing all four fingernails on his right hand at the same time. At last, people begin to leave. Groups form and disperse and reform based on who's going where and how they're getting there.  
Orli drifts to Elijah's end of the table and sits down in the vacant seat next to him. Orli starts digging his thumbnail into the flakes of bread crust scattered on the tablecloth; Elijah watches with interest.  
"Hey," Dom says, standing up from his place at the far end of the table, "you tossers wanna share a ride?"  
"No, thanks," Elijah says, with no further explanation.  
Orli looks up at Dom, as if to confirm Elijah's answer.  
"Ewww, fine," Dom says in mock-offence. "If you're too good to share a – here, Billy, Lij and Orli don't want to share a taxi with us."  
"I don't blame 'em, we're disgustin'," Billy says, clutching at Dom for support.  
"Coffee-breath," Dom says fondly, winding one arm around Billy's waist.  
Billy huffs open-mouthed into Dom's face, making Dom wince.  
" _Zambuccer_."  
"Bless you," Dom smirks.  
"Take meh home, Dommie," Billy beams. "I think I'm goin' teh be sick."  
"You all right, Billy?" Orli asks.  
"It's not the booze," Dom says. "It's the sugar that does 'im in."  
Billy giggles at this.  
"Come on, yeh twit," Dom says.  
They stumble off, waving and air kissing and flipping the bird at various people in parting.  
"You wanna go?" Orli asks Elijah quietly.  
"Yeah."  
They get up and make their way through the restaurant to the front door, turning down a couple more offers of shared rides, and go out into the street. Several groups wait on the sidewalk for more taxis.  
"You wanna walk a bit?" Orli says.  
"Sure."  
They pull their jackets on, and wish those around them goodnight. They start off down the street in silence, side by side. Elijah pats his pockets, locating his cigarettes and lighter.  
"You want?" he says, offering Orli the open packet.  
"No, I'm good."  
Orli watches as Elijah lights up and takes a lung-deep hit from his cigarette.  
"You okay?" Orli asks after another block or so.  
"Yeah. You?"  
"Yeah, I think so. It's weird," Orli says, and then amends at once, "but good, good weird."  
Elijah laughs. Their pace has already dropped to an idle and now they come to a standstill. Orli takes a half step that puts him facing Elijah. Elijah flurries cigarette smoke out between pursed lips and looks up Orli from the corners of his eyes.  
"So … " he says.  
"Yeah. Can I … ?"  
"Yeah, I really want you to."  
Orli takes another half step forward, the toes of his boots fouling against Elijah's a little, and leans in, ducking his head. Elijah remembers at the last second to hold his cigarette off to the side out of the way.  
Their lips are a little chilled now, but their breaths and tongues are warm. Elijah loops his free arm up around Orli's shoulders. Orli's hands come round inside the fronts of Elijah's jacket and curve to fit the sides of Elijah's waist, where his tee shirt rucks up over his jeans and leaves a strip of skin bare.  
At first Elijah keeps his eyes open, getting weird sulfur-lit glimpses of Orli's gleaming eyes and the ridges of his cheekbones; then Orli's eyelashes curtain down. Elijah closes his eyes too. Now the world's nothing but the heat inside Orli's mouth and the smooth curl and turn of his tongue against Elijah's. Elijah feels a funny little pang of guilt that he's never kissed a girl with this much conviction. Never let his head fall back and his throat stretch taut and his fingers make little curls on the warm thin skin behind Orli's ear …  
… never felt this way.  
The kiss ends. They draw back to look at each other, breathless and shaky and utterly at peace.  
"Let's go somewhere, yeah?" Orli whispers.  
"Yours is closest."  
Orli steps off the curb, waving down a passing taxi while Elijah sucks a last drag off his cigarette and flicks the stub into the gutter. They pile into the back seat and Orli gives the driver the directions. Elijah pulls his jacket around himself. Orli's hand insinuates itself between Elijah's spine and the backrest of the car seat, rubbing slowly up and down between his shoulder blades. Elijah hesitates for a minute, and then he deliberately lets himself tip sideways against Orli. Orli's arm comes around Elijah's shoulders and pulls him closer, and Elijah feels the hard point of Orlando's chin on the top of his head.  
"You all right?" Orli murmurs.  
"Fantastic," Elijah says, smiling in the dark.  
\---  
"Fuck it, man, you got way the best house of any of us," Elijah says, when they've paid off the taxi and are walking up the steeply sloped driveway to the back deck of Orli's house.  
"Yeah, it's pretty amazing. You wanna walk over?" Orli says, meaning the narrow track that leads across a couple of dunes to the beach.  
"Just for a minute."  
They walk across the square of asphalt where Orli's jeep is parked, then along the beaten trail, sand-grass streaming in the breeze and whipping against their calves. The sound of the sea is a seamless rush, quiet but profound. They come down the dune-side slope, Orli leading the way out onto the beach.  
"Jesus," Elijah says, as he says every time he's confronted with the sea by night, with the ink-black rolls of the waves catching random fragments of moonlight and throwing them back in sparkles and shine.  
Orli walks on, onto the harder wetter sand, where the receding tide has left ripples carved into the dull surface. Elijah digs for another cigarette.  
Orli stoops, picking a pale shell from between two ridges of sand. He walks to the very edge of the water and crouches down, washing his treasure clean.  
"I love you," Elijah says, coming to stand by him. "I mean, I'm in love with you."  
Orli stands up, flicking the shell in his fingers to dry it. He looks at the shell, at the sea, at the sky behind Elijah's head. He presses his lips together tightly and wrinkles his nose.  
"Look, if you don't feel the same way, y' know, it's - " Elijah says hastily.  
"I do."  
"What?"  
"I said, I do, feel the same, I mean," Orli says, and he finally manages to wrench his sightline back to Elijah's enormous eyes. "I just, I've never said – I've never told anyone – I just - "  
"It's fine, man," Elijah beams. "You don't have to say it."  
They walk back up the beach to where the sand is dry and soft underfoot.  
"Shit, I'm fuckin' shaking," Orli says with a laugh. "All that coffee."  
Elijah laughs too, stepping in close and rubbing his hands up and down Orli's arms.  
"Cold?"  
"No. Yeah. I dunno. Maybe."  
"Great. You're a mine of fucking information," Elijah teases, and they're too close to avoid falling into each other's gravity again, and this time the kiss is a little harsher, a little hungrier.  
"God, you taste gorgeous," Orli growls, taking hold of Elijah's face with both hands and tipping his mouth to a better angle.  
They're both shivering now, digging into the warmth of each other's mouths by blind instinct. Elijah throws his cigarette aside less than half-smoked, and pushes both hands up inside Orli's shirt. Orli's skin is warm and smooth, and his ribcage surges and falls feverishly.  
Orli fumbles under Elijah's jacket. His hands drop to the waist of Elijah's jeans, sliding around to the fly buttons.  
"Fuck, not out here, man," Elijah laughs, pulling his mouth from Orli's and arching his shoulders and chest away.  
"Come on, it's the middle of the night, who's gonna see?" Orli murmurs, nudging his mouth below Elijah's ear.  
"Liv, if she looks out her window."  
"Well, you keep a lookout," Orli says, thumbing Elijah's buttons open.  
"Fu … uck. Where's her house again?"  
Orli tugs Elijah's denims down onto his thighs.  
"Behind you."  
"Oh … whatever," Elijah sighs, swaying a little as Orli sinks slowly to his knees in the sand and the tendons down the backs of Elijah's thighs almost melt with anticipation.  
"Lij, Lijah, Elijah," Orli whispers against Elijah's hip.  
Elijah shivers, as much at Orli's warm breath against his belly as at the cold breeze sliding across the rest of his skin. Orli's palms rasp warmly into the small of Elijah's back, down inside the waistband of his shorts.  
Elijah catches his lower lip between his teeth and pulls at it hard enough to counterpoint the heat of Orli's fingers and the whisper of cotton and the ruffle of the air on Elijah's now naked ass. Elijah closes his eyes, letting the sound of the waves and Orli's breath wash over him.  
"Yes," Elijah says.  
Orli eases Elijah's shorts the rest of the way down, until they're gathered around his knees with his jeans. Elijah drops one hand to Orli's shoulder, bending over a little to steady himself.  
"Oh, God, please," he sighs.  
Orli licks a stripe from the crease of Elijah's groin up to his hipbone, heat that turns to chill in seconds, and then dries away to a tingle. Orli bites gently at the crest of the bone.  
"Oh," Elijah says weakly, flexing his fingers on Orli's shoulder.  
Orli repeats the gesture, lick and bite. This time, Elijah's 'oh' flickers with a sharper edge. Orli's hands slide around to Elijah's ass, fingers splayed around the lean curves. Orli sits back on his heels, and nuzzles between Elijah's thighs. Elijah shifts as best he can, parting his legs as much as possible while he's still tethered around the knees by his jeans and underwear.  
"Oh God," he says.  
Orli licks his way up the inside of Elijah's right thigh, over the trembling muscles into the crease next to Elijah's balls.  
Elijah starts to pant, small frantic breaths that rock him from heels to head. His fingers dig into the muscles of Orli's shoulder.  
" … please … "  
Orli makes a fragmentary sound of reassurance, and the vibration of it is still humming on his tongue as he moves his head and his open mouth brushes the head of Elijah's cock.  
Elijah cries out, the sound flattened and quickly quenched in the open air. Orli's hands slide down the backs of Elijah's thighs, holding him steady, pressing him forwards so that his cock slides into the heat and depth of Orli's mouth.  
Elijah lets his head drop back until he feels the burn in the muscles of his throat. He rocks on his heels, secure in Orli's restraining hold on him as Orli pushes forward and then draws slowly back. Elijah manages to crack his eyes open, and moves his hand up along the sprung tendons of Orli's neck, around the curl of his ear and the naked curve at the side of his skull.  
Orli's smiling, or would be if he didn't have a mouth full of Elijah's cock; Elijah can feel it in the arch of Orli's tongue and the tension across his lower lip. He nudges and nuzzles at Elijah, pushing in until his nose is tipping against Elijah's belly, then pulling back along the length of Elijah's shaft until his lips ring the ridge around the head.  
"Fuck … fuck … fuck," Elijah whispers, a soft fervent litany of pleasure.  
Orli knows the precise turn of his head and flicker of his tongue that best unravels Elijah, and he's making ruthless use of that knowledge. Elijah is appalled at how rapidly his body gathers itself, how the heat darts up the backs of his legs and quivers in his guts, how the world narrows to Orli's mouth and the cold kiss of the wind.  
Elijah keens, his thighs shuddering so hard that the shake of it goes right through him. He's already shivering from the cold, and then he tips over the edge and his orgasm is another rippling crosscurrent of vibration and for a few seconds he's sure he's gonna come apart into a million spinning shining pieces.  
Afterwards, Orli's mouth is warmer and silkier than ever. Elijah feels the fluid slide of his own come between his softening cock and Orli's tongue, and the pulling pressure of Orli swallowing around him.  
Orli slides his mouth off Elijah's cock, and Elijah almost whimpers at the touch of the air on his still wet skin. Orli grins up at him, thin lips chafed dark red and eyes shining wildly.  
Elijah laughs and staggers a little, and Orli clutches at him to keep him steady.  
"Oh … fuck," Elijah says.  
Orli laughs in return, standing up and knocking sand off the knees of his jeans with one hand while the other keeps Elijah mostly upright. Elijah winds his arms around Orli's neck and pulls him down despite Orli's slight resistance. Orli's mouth is softer than before, warmer than anything has a right to be on this fall night, and harsh with the salt-smell of Elijah's come. Elijah jabs his tongue into the recesses of Orli's mouth until Orli's the one leaning weak-kneed on Elijah for support. Elijah leaves the kiss with a last long lick across Orli's parted lips.  
"I thought you didn't like the taste of – " Orli murmurs.  
"I like this."  
"When it's yours, you mean."  
"When it's in your mouth."  
"Lij," Orli says, his eyes huge and black in the dark as he strokes Elijah's smooth cheek.  
Elijah pushes him off and starts pulling his own clothing back together.  
"Let's go back," he says.  
Orli nods, folding his arms and tucking his hands into the ends of his jacket sleeves.  
"Yeah. Jesus, it's fuckin' freezing out here."  
"Really? I hadn't noticed," Elijah lies, doing up a couple of his fly buttons and hitching his jeans higher on his hips.  
He walks back to the trail, slogging up the sliding face of the dune with Orli behind him. When they get onto the asphalt Orli comes level with him. They go side by side up the wooden stairs to the back deck.  
"Weird," Orli says apropos nothing, digging for his keys.  
"But good."  
"I always forget how young you are," Orli says gravely, unlocking the kitchen door and going in.  
"You and me and everyone else on Earth, except maybe Hannah," Elijah shrugs, peeling his jacket off as Orli turns the alarm off, flicks the lights on, and closes the door behind them.  
"I just … you seem so sure about this."  
"I am," Elijah says, coming closer. "I'm also freezing to death."  
He offers Orli his hands, reddened at the knuckles and pinched white around the nail beds. Orli takes them between his broader palms and longer fingers, trying to chafe some warmth back into them.  
"Shit. Let's get you into bed, warm you up," he says seriously.  
"Now you're talkin'," Elijah smirks.  
He pushes in, rubbing his renewed erection against the crest of Orli's thigh muscle. Orli leans down, and Elijah gets to taste the fading echoes of himself again, with Orli's own flavor reasserting itself.  
When they break from the kiss, they go out of the kitchen and through the house, up the stairs to Orli's bedroom. Orli puts on low lights and draws the curtains closed while Elijah heels his boots off and strips his tee shirt off over his head. Orli turns, smiling, and starts shrugging his own clothes off with unselfconscious simplicity.  
"So … you've really never said it to anyone," Elijah says, undoing his jeans again and ridding himself of the slightly damp and very chilled layers of cotton and denim. "You never told someone you … loved them."  
"I tell my family," Orli answers, turning his head in a way that makes clear he knows that isn't what Elijah's talking about.  
Orli unbuttons his shirt and throws it off. Elijah pulls the bedcovers back and climbs into bed, hauling pillows around and punching them and piling them to his personal specifications.  
"What about you?" Orli asks, stripping his jeans off. "Have you been in love before?"  
"Oh yeah," Elijah grins, his eyebrows gathering in doubtful amusement. "In love, out of love … I've been around. I'm ready to settle down."  
Orli skins his shorts off and crawls into bed too.  
"Yeah?"  
"Yeah."  
They come into each other's arms, cold hands and feet, cold faces, bellies warm and cocks hard. They  
nuzzle at each other's mouths, finding the heat of breath and then tongues.  
"God, I love kissing you," Orli marvels when they finally pause.  
Elijah grins and pushes at him until Orli unravels back among the pillows. Elijah wriggles on top  
of him.  
"What else do you love?" he asks teasingly.  
Orli bites at his lip and wrinkles his nose as Elijah squirms around, rubbing their bare skins together.  
"I love … how horny you are," Orli laughs, bending one knee and drawing his leg up a little, so that Elijah's cock slides across Orli's groin and then fall-bumps gently between his legs and ends up nudging eagerly against the inside of Orli's thigh.  
"Uhn … God," Elijah murmurs against Orli's shoulder, flexing his toes against the sheets, scrabbling a little to push further into the heated crease of Orli's flesh, and pressing his own belly down on Orli's erection.  
Orli hisses in a low breath and pushes back against Elijah.  
"I love … how much you want this," Orli whispers.  
Elijah wrenches his head up, his eyes wide and dim and his lips swollen and flushed.  
"I do. I really fucking do, man."  
Orli never takes his eyes from Elijah's, but he reaches down and catches hold of Elijah's wrist, and pulls Elijah's hand to where their bodies loosely intersect.  
"I love the way it feels."  
Elijah shivers.  
"Oh fuck, man. Just … fuck."  
He pulls his wrist free, his fingers working quick and sure between Orli's legs, and Orli stutters out a sharp breath. Elijah scrambles back, onto his knees, and grabs for the bottle of olive oil on the nightstand. He laughs, even as he carefully spills a little of oil into his cupped palm.  
"Y'know, we should really get something more suitable for this," he grins.  
"Yeah, it's fuckin' up the sheets."  
"And the bed smells like a salad. Very fuckin' sexy."  
"Every time we go to an Italian restaurant, I'm gonna get a hard-on," Orli says, and then Elijah has his palms slicked and Orli hooks one heel over Elijah's hip and urges him to come back again.  
"How do you wanna – "  
"Try it like this," Orli says softly, pulling Elijah down until they're pressed together again.  
Elijah leans on one elbow, working the other hand slowly on his cock, and then between Orli's legs. Orli shifts a little more, and Elijah pushes a couple of fingers along the heated crease of Orli's ass, and rubs against his opening. Orli presses his lips together, and sighs out the breath he's holding.  
"What else do you love?" Elijah whispers.  
" _This_ ," Orli breathes, his eyes closing and his mouth falling softly open as Elijah pushes his fingers into the grip of Orli's body. "Oh God … this."  
"It doesn't hurt?" Elijah asks, his voice barely a murmur against Orli's cheek while his fingers screw inwards.  
Olri lets his head fall back on the pillow, his eyelids flickering not quite closed.  
"No – no. It's so … fucking good."  
"You feel amazing … tight … hot, inside."  
"Come on," Orli says, and it's quieter than a whisper, hardly more than the shape of the words with his lips against Elijah's temple.  
Elijah shifts, moving his weight on his knees and one hand, his fingers sliding slow and sure over Orli's body, then over his own. They slip together, both pairs of eyes lowered to the shadowy junction between them.  
"Oh Christ - "  
"Fuck, that looks fucking amazing - "  
"Now?"  
" _Yes_."  
They watch in silent fascination as Elijah's cock pushes slowly into Orli's body, then there's a tipping point to Elijah's weight and he slides home, sinking down on Orli's chest with a stuttering sigh.  
Orli pushes at Elijah with his chin, forcing him to lift his face so that Orli can smear his mouth across Elijah's.  
"Oh … oh God," Elijah keens.  
"Come on … move in me."  
Elijah gathers himself, his fists knuckling into the mattress on either side of Orli's hips, and he begins the slow exquisite torture of working himself in and out of Orli's body. Orli gasps, open-mouthed and grinning.  
Elijah tilts, extending one still oily palm.  
"Do you want - "  
Orli shakes his head.  
"No. I wanna just feel it, yeah?"  
Elijah almost snarls, a little shiver of arousal hitting him under his belly at the idea that Orli wants to lie here and let Elijah fuck him. Elijah's first orgasm has bought him a little time, a little control. He keeps his pace steady and smooth, focusing on not giving in to the urge to go as hard and as fast as he can, to grab for the next one.  
Orli starts to writhe, his spine flexing and arching, his hands fisting and falling open again against the sheets. His thighs tighten on Elijah's hips, and then drop apart again. Elijah tries to hold on, tries to let the feelings build and burn, but he can already feel the weighty shuddering deep in his guts that warns him he's running out of time.  
"Oh God … it's really fucking good … you're really fucking good," he says frantically.  
Orli laughs breathlessly.  
"Is that code for 'I'm gonna shoot my fuckin' load'?"  
"Sorry," Elijah says, slightly panicked.  
"Don't be," Orli hisses, as his whole body pulls tight and he squeezes his eyes shut. "Come on, come on."  
"Oh shit, shit," Elijah mutters, half trying to hold himself off and half yielding, his breath shattering into shaky little gasps. "I don' want to … I don't want it to end."  
Orli laughs, the sound rough and unsteady, and he digs his fingers into the sweat-spiked hair over Elijah's left ear.  
"It's not gonna end, you idiot, it's never gonna end."  
Elijah groans as something blood-heavy pulses behind his balls.  
"Tell me … tell me you love it," he says, his fingers digging into the smooth bone and muscle of Orli's hips.  
"I love it," Orli says at once, pulling his head and shoulders off the pillows, curling up to bring his face closer to Elijah's. "I love it - "  
Elijah starts to pant, everything – breath, pulse, _bones_ \- coming apart in the same frantic rhythm.  
" – I love it," Orli snarls.  
Elijah tenses, every muscle turning rigid until it burns with white fire  
"I love it - "  
Orli arches up, his body bowed, open, accepting. Elijah grinds his teeth, half-stifling the cry that rips itself free from his throat, and he clutches at Orli.  
" – I love - "  
"Oh _fuck_ ," Elijah yells, and the universe tears loose inside him and everything  
beats  
red  
black  
beautiful  
" – you," Orli snarls, his own body shimmering and shuddering and so close to the edge that he's no longer in control of himself and he  
falls

  
"Christ," Elijah sighs, his eyelids fluttering open.  
He's lying on Orli's heaving chest, his skin stuck to Orli's with a thin slick of sweat between their chests, and sliding on smears of come between their bellies.  
"Oh – fuck - _off_ ," Orli manages to say between gasps. "Out, and off."  
They both falter another moan of pleasured agony as they pull apart and Elijah flops onto his back, arms and legs every which way.  
"Oh … buggerin' hell," Orli says, wiping his hands over his face and skull. "If you'll excuse the expression."  
Elijah nods, just working for breath for a while. Eventually, he turns his head, grinning at Orli.  
"I think we're getting better at it," Elijah beams.  
"Well, we better not get much better, or someone's head is gonna explode. Possibly mine."  
"You said it," Elijah says, his grin falling away into a smile, softer and surer. "I heard you."  
"You're fuckin' hearing things, man. In the heat of the moment."  
They look at each other, Elijah reaching out to trail his fingertips along the damp and cooling skin of Orli's ribcage. Orli covers Elijah's hand with his own, his long slender fingers interweaving with Elijah's shorter, stubbier ones.  
"It's okay," Elijah says. "I love you, man."  
Orli blinks, slow and sleepy.  
"Yeah. It's okay."  
The End.


End file.
